Mr Lumsdaine on the Cultivation of Spices 
be encouraged, and all suckers or dead and unproductive bran- 
ches are to be removed by the pruning-knife, so as to thin the 
trees considerably, and to admit of the descent of the night- 
dews, which are greatly contributive to their well-being, espe- 
cially during the dry and sultry weather ; creepers are to be 
dislodged, and the lower verticels lopped off, with the view of 
establishing an unimpeded circulation of air. The conclusion 
of the great annual harvest is the fittest time for pruning the 
trees. 
The nutmeg tree is monoecious as well as dioecious, but no 
means of discovering the sexes before the period of inflores- 
cence are as yet known. The relative proportion of male and 
female trees is also undefined, and is indeed the effect of chance ; 
the number of productive trees may, however, in a rough way, 
be estimated at about two-thirds of the whole cultivation. 
Whatever may be the intention of nature in producing so great 
a proportion of male trees, and however necessary this may be 
to the continuation of the species in a wild state, it does not ap- 
pear, that, when reduced to a state of cultivation, the fertile 
plants are in any way benefited by it, as the monoecious plants 
have in themselves the means of perfecting their fruit. The 
number of male trees, therefore, necessary to be retained, for 
the impregnation of the female ones, will depend entirely upon 
that of the monoecious kind ; and all above this number are to 
be considered as superfluous, and should be cut down, that 
others may be planted in their stead. 
Upon an average, the nutmeg^tree produces fruit at the age 
of seven years, and increases in produce till the fifteenth year, 
when its productiveness is at the highest. It is said to continue 
prolific in the Moluccas for seventy or eighty years, but our ex- 
perience carries us no farther than twenty-two years and a half, 
all the trees of which age that have been properly managed, are 
still in the highest degree of vigour and fecundity ; and for this 
reason no term for planting a succession of trees can yet be 
fixed upon. Seven months in general elapse between the first 
appearance of the blossom and ripening of the fruit, and the 
produce of one bearing tree with another under good cultiva- 
tion, may, in the fifteenth year of the plantation, be calculated 
at five pounds of nutmegs, and a pound and a quarter of mace. 
