76 
MYRISTICA MOSCHATA. 
to De Corayn (see his State of the Philippine Islands, p. 26) two 
sorts grow in that island, one shaped like a pigeon's egg, the other 
perfectly sj)herical. 
The nutmeg tree produces fruit at the age of seven -years ; at 
fifteen it is in the greatest state of productiveness; and, in the 
Molucca Islands, it continues to bear till it has attained the age of 
seventy or eighty years, yielding three crops annually : the first in 
April, the second in August, and the third (which is considered the 
best) in December. The fruit requires nine months to ripen, so that 
the flowers and fruit are seen on the tree in various stages of matu- 
rity at the same time. 
" The Dutch having possession of the spice islands in 1619, encou- 
raged, to the utmost of their power, the cultivation of the nutmeg in a 
few of them ; and were anxious, for the sake of the monopoly, to have 
them there so exclusively, that they either destroyed them themselves 
in the remainder of the islands, or kept the princes in their pay 
for the purpose of doing so. In fact, they pursued the same line of 
policy with the nutmeg, as has already been described with regard 
to the clove, under that article. They have more than once suffered 
dearly for their insatiable avarice, for the dreadful hurricanes and 
earthquakes, which spared other islands, nearly annihilated the 
nutmegs of Banda in 1778 ; so that the Dutch were only able to have 
a few supplies for several years afterwards. While the Dutch remained 
undisputed possessors of the spice islands, the quantity of nutmegs 
and mace exported from their nutmeg-grounds, circumscribed as 
they were, was truly enormous. Stavorinus, in his valuable Voyage 
to the East Indies, gives an excellent account of the commercial 
history of this spice. A quantity estimated at no less than 250,000 
pounds annually, used to be vended in Europe, and nearly half that 
amount in the East Indies. Of mace the average has been 90,000 
pounds sold in Europe, and 10,000 pounds in the East Indies. When 
the spice islands were taken by the British, in 1796, the importation 
of the East India Company into England alone, in the two years fol- 
lowing the capture, were, of nutmegs 129,732 pounds, and of mace 
286,000 pounds. When the crops of spice have been superabundant, 
and the price likely, in consequence, to be reduced, the same con- 
tracted spirit has actuated the Dutch to destroy immense quantities 
of the fruit, rather than suffer the markets to be lowered. A Hol- 
lander, who had returned from the spice islands, informed Sir 
William Temple, that at one time^, he saw three piles of nutmegs 
burnt, each of which was more than a church of ordinary dimensions 
