From tabular statements drawn up in 1844, by Mr. F.S. Brown, Chairman of the Pinang Chamber of Commerce, it appears that there were, in 1843, in that island and Province Wellesley adjoining, 96 clove plantations, containing 80,418 clove trees; besides many young trees in nurseries ready to be planted out. The produce of cloves there, in 1842, was 11,813 lbs., and this was a very short crop, it having that year proved a complete failure; the average crop for some years previous had been 46,666 lbs. Pinang only began to export this spice in 1832. Of the clove trees in Pinang there were then only 29,812 in bearing, leaving 75,767 in that settlement alone to come to maturity; estimated to yield about 300,000 lbs.
No success has attended repeated trials of cloves in Singapore. Until the trees reach the age of bearing, they grow and look extremely well; but any expectation of a crop that may have been raised by their hitherto fine condition, ends in disappointment, for just then the trees assume the appearance of sudden blight, as if lightning-stricken, and then die. 125 clove plants and 350 seedlings were sent to Singapore from Bencoolen, by Sir T. Raffles, in the close of 1819; but although every care was paid them—while the nutmegs which accompanied them throve amazingly well—little or no progress has been made with clove culture. Two or three hundred-weight were shipped in 1845, but since then hardly any mention is made of the spice.
In a petition presented by the spice planters of Pinang and Province Wellesley, to the authorities at home, in 1844, praying that the duty on British Colonial nutmegs, mace, and cloves might be reduced to 1s. 9d., 1s. 3d., and 3d. respectively, on importation into England, in order to compete with foreign produce, it was stated that a few years hence Prince of Wales Island might be expected to produce 600,000 lbs. of nutmegs, 200,000 lbs. of mace, and 300,000 lbs. of cloves; whilst Singapore, if equally successful in the culture of the same, would yield yearly 137,000 lbs. of nutmegs, 45,000 lbs. of mace, and 60,000 lbs. of cloves. In short, the planters needed only encouragement to produce in the course of a few years a full supply of those valuable spices for the whole consumption of Great Britain.
Dr. Ruschenberger, who visited Zanzibar in 1835, thus speaks of the clove plantations there:—"As far as the eye could reach over a beautifully undulated land, nothing was to be seen but clove trees of different ages, varying in height from five to twenty feet. The form of the tree is conical, the branches grow at nearly right angles with the trunk, and they begin to shoot a few inches above the ground. The plantation contains nearly four thousand trees, and each tree yields on an average six pounds of cloves a year; they are carefully picked by hand, and then dried in the shade; we saw numbers of slaves standing on ladders gathering the spice, while others were at work clearing the ground of dead leaves. The whole is in the finest order, presenting a picture of industry and of admirable neatness and beauty. They were introduced into Zanzibar in 1818, from Mauritius, and are found to thrive so well that almost everybody in the island is now clearing away the cocoa nut to make way for them. The clove bears in five or six years from the seed; of course time enough has not yet elapsed for the value and quantity of Zanzibar cloves to be generally known; they are worth, however, in the Bombay market, about 30s. the Surat maund of 39¼ lbs.; the price for Molucca cloves in the Eastern market is from 28 to 30 dollars per picul of 133 lbs.; for those of Mauritius, 20 to 24 dollars per picul."
The average annual consumption of cloves in the United Kingdom, in the four years ending 1841, was 49,000 lbs. The largest quantity of cloves imported during the past twenty-five years was 1,041,171 lbs., in 1847. The quantities imported and entered for home consumption in the last five years have been as follows:—
| Imports. lbs. | Home consumption. lbs. | |
| 1848 | 117,433 | 126,691 |
| 1849 | 274,713 | 133,713 |
| 1850 | 749,646 | 159,934 |
| 1851 | 253,439 | 138,132 |
| 1852 | 313,949 | 175,287 |
In 1848 we received 60,000 lbs. of cloves from British India.
THE NUTMEG.
Myristica moschata, M. officinalis, or aromatica.—This tree is of a larger growth than the clove, attaining a height of thirty feet, and has its leaves broader in proportion to their length; the upper surface of these is of a bright green, the under of a greyish color. It is a diœcious plant, having male or barren pale yellow flowers upon one tree, and female or fertile flowers upon another. The fruit is drupaceous, and opens by two valves when ripe, displaying the beautiful reticulated scarlet arillus, which constitutes mace. Within this is a hard, dark brown, and glossy shell, covering the kernel, which is the nutmeg of the shops.
The kernels of M. tomentosa are also used as aromatics, under the name of wild or male nutmegs.