at Bencoolen, in the Island of Sumatra* 13S 
I have observed, however, that some trees produce every year a 
great quantity of fruit, while others constantly give very little. 
It bears all the year round, but more plentifully in some months 
than in others. The great harvest may generally be looked for 
in the months of September, October, November and December, 
and a small one in April, May and June, Like other fruit- 
trees on this portion of Sumatra, I have remarked that it yields 
most abundantly every second year. The fruit having ripened, 
the outer integument bursts spontaneously, and is gathered by 
means of a hook attached to a long stick, and the mace being 
cautiously stripped off, and flattened by the hands in single 
layers, is placed on mats for three or four days in the sun to 
dry. In damp and rainy weather, the mace should be dried by 
the heat of a charcoal fire carefully conducted, so as not to 
smoke it or blacken its surface. 
The nuts liberated from their macy envelope, are “transported 
to the drying-house, and deposited on an elevated stage of split 
neebongs, placed at a sufficient distance from each other to ad- 
mit of the heat, from a smouldering fire beneath, without suf- 
fering even the smallest nuts to pass through. The heat should 
not exceed 140° of Fahrenheit, for a sudden inordinate degree 
of heat dries up the kernels of the nuts too rapidly, and its 
continued application produces fissures in them ; or a fermenta- 
tion is excited in them, which increases their volume so greatly 
as to fill up the whole cavity of the shell, and to prevent them 
from rattling, when put to this criterion of due preparation. 
The fire is lighted in the evening, and kept up for the whole of 
the night. The smoking-house is a brick building, of a suit- 
able size, with a terraced roof, and the stage is placed at an ele- 
vation of ten feet from the ground, having three divisions in it 
for the produce of different months. The nuts must be turned 
every second or third day, that they may all partake equally of 
the heat ; and such as have undergone the smoking process for 
the period of two complete months, and rattle freely in the shell, 
are to be cracked with wooden mallets, the worm-eaten and 
shrivelled ones thrown out, and the good ones rubbed over sim- 
ply with recently prepared well sifted dry lime. They are now 
to be regarbled, and finally packed for transportation in light 
casks, the insides of which have been smoked, cleaned, and 
