60 
CULTIVATION OF NUTMEGS AND CLOVES IN BENCOOLEN. 
but those in Nos. 2 and 4 remained untouched. The injured nuts 
were allowed to remain, and after the lapse of the third year, five 
worm eaten ones were discovered in No 1, three in No. 3, and two 
in No. 4, those in No. 2 being in their original state. Four years 
and four months have now elapsed since the commencement of 
these experiments, and upon examining the several parcels the other 
day, the number of decayed nuts has not increased in Nos. 1, 3 
and 4, and those in No. 2 are as good as the day they were put in- 
to the box. These experiments not only prove the superiority of 
liming in the dry way, but also the fact that the progress to gene- 
ral decay in a heap of nutmegs, even after the insect has establish- 
ed itself, must be a work of years. In the shell they will keep for 
a great length of time. I have myself kept them in this state for six 
years, and when cracked they were found perfectly sound. From 
the report of the London brokers, however, they will not answer 
in Europe on account of the heavy allowance for shells, which is 
one-third of the weight; but the Chinese merchants are in the daily- 
habit of exporting them to Pinang and China, where they are in 
request. It is stated on the best authority, that unlimed or brown 
nutmegs, as the home dealers call them, mixed with cloves as in 
experiment No. 4, are highly esteemed in England, and even pre- 
ferred by some to the limed produce ; most probably from the 
greater facility of detecting the flaws in them in their naked state. 
Although the clove tree attains great perfection in the red 
mould of these districts, it is more partial to a less tenacious soil. 
Its cultivation has been established for many years in the West 
Indies and at Bourbon, and is of secondary importance only. The 
mother cloves are planted in rich mould at the distance of twelve 
inches f rom each other, screened from the sun and duly watered. 
They germinate within five weeks, and when four feet high aie to 
be transplanted at intervals of thirty feet, with a small admixture 
of sand with the red mould so as to reduce its tenacity; and to be 
cultivated in the same mode as the nutmegs, only that when full 
grown they require less manure in the proportion of one-third. 
They yield generally at the age of six years, and at that of twelve 
are in their highest state of bearing, when the average produce 
may be estimated at six or seven pounds of marketable fruit eaoh 
tree during the harvest, which takes place in the rainy months, 
but with us they have hitherto borne two crops in three years only. 
