To particles most fine,
You yet return for cruel strokes,
Tears filled with perfume fine.
NUTMEGS are the fruit of Myristica fragrans (natural order Myristicaceoe) maschata officinalis. Myristica is founded upon the Greek word myrrh, myristikas, sweet smelling, and belongs to the custard family.
Italian, Nace moscada; French, Muscades et macis or Naix muscade; Portuguese, Noiz mascada; German, Muskatnusse and Muskatbluther.
The nutmeg was known by the Persians (as jouzbewa) and by the Arabians (jowzalteib) in the eighth century. There are about forty different species. Although the name myristikas (sweet smelling) was given to the genus on account of the odor of its fruit, there is a material difference in the several species, the commercial value of the fruit depending upon the degree in which the essential oil producing this perfume is present.
The true nutmeg is the kernel, mostly consisting of the albumen of the fruit or the seed of a diœcious evergreen tree, which in some countries, as in New Guinea, grows from fifty to sixty feet high. It is a native of the Molucca Islands. The nutmeg gardens of the world are the Banda Islands belonging to the East Indies, but the nutmeg is also found in the West Indies on the Island of Jamaica, which is quite noted for its nutmeg plantations. Nutmegs are also found in Bengal, Singapore, Penang, and French Guinea and Brazil, in the west peninsula of New Guinea, Damma, Amboina, Ceram, Boro, Boero or Bouro, Gilolo, Sumatra, and they have been successfully introduced in Ternate, Menando, in the Celebes group, and in Java and Bourbon or Reunion, but not in the Philippines. They do not do well except between 12 degrees north and 5 degrees south of the equator. They are found growing wild in the Banda Islands, to which they are indigenous. Three of these islands are noted for their nutmeg gardens, viz.: Great Banda or Lantor (Lantor Banda), Pulo Nera, and Goenong Api. The three islands together contain thirty-four parks, of which Great Banda has twenty-five, Goenong Api six, and Pulo Nera three.
These parks contain 319,804 bearing trees, which produce annually about 4,000 piculs of 139½ pounds each of nutmegs, and 1,000 pounds of mace. This yield gives about one and one-half catties of 139 pounds each of spice to each tree per annum. But much of the fruit is lost on account of the height of the trees, and the inaccessible places in which many of the nuts fall. Many drop into the streams and float away, and many are lost by being worm-eaten, also many are eaten by field rats. The entire group of Banda Islands is comprised within a space seven miles long and three miles wide; in fact, these are the dimensions of the Island of Lantor itself. The islands are of a light volcanic soil, and the great moisture, due to the numerous rains, makes them most favorable for nutmeg raising, and seems almost perfectly to suit the requirements of the tree. The only cultivation required is to keep the grass and weeds and underbrush cut, no manuring or artificial stimulus being needed. Almost the entire surface of the islands is planted with nutmeg trees. The labor is performed by Dutch convicts, who are banished to these islands, there being no native population.
Plants which spring up spontaneously from the seed are taken up and transplanted by simply heeling in the ground of the required vacancy. In some places clumps of trees are found growing not more than ten to twelve feet apart under the shade of the canarium commune. In fact, the nutmeg is more collected than cultivated in the Banda Islands. The trees grow from fifty to sixty feet high, while those of the Straits are but a shrub in comparison, and in other countries they grow only from twenty to forty feet high, and need much manuring and very careful cultivation. It would appear as if the trees were overshaded in the Straits, and yet they require much shade to protect them from the strong winds which prevail there.
When a nutmeg plantation is to be started, great care must be taken to select a good, rich, virgin soil, formed of a deep loam with good drainage, as the plants will not thrive on a sandy soil. The rainfall should be at least from sixty to seventy inches per annum. Although the nutmeg plant is essentially a lowland plant, flourishing from two hundred to four hundred feet above sea level, and not proving successful at a higher elevation than fifteen hundred feet, it must be kept free from stagnant water about its roots, for this would surely kill it. Virgin forest lands, with a soil covered with a layer of leaf mold or rotten wood, is well adapted to the cultivation of the plant, and a hot, moist climate is requisite. Plenty of shade is necessary to protect the trees from the prevailing winds which would scatter the flowers and uproot the trees, as the roots take but a slender hold in the ground. Large trees should not be allowed to grow with spice trees, as they would exclude the vivifying rays of the sun and arrest the fall of the night dews, which are necessary for quantity as well as quality of the nutmegs. Large trees would also rob the soil of its richness. A double row of cassuarina littorea and cerbera manghas planted at the windward side of the plantations will afford ample shade and protection from the winds, and trees with these advantages will give good crops.