Spices and How to Know Them

by Walter M. Gibbs

Plants are raised from the largest, round, fresh nuts before they will rattle in the shell, care being taken that they are not more than two months old. They may be planted and staked in the field intended for the plantation, about eight feet apart. If they are kept well watered and manured, such planting is preferred to sowing in a nursery. Plants raised in a nursery are usually sown in bottomless baskets about one inch below the surface in a place well sheltered from the winds. The nurseries must be kept free from weeds and well watered every day in dry weather, especially when the seeds are planted in bamboo baskets, for should the earth become hard and dry the nuts will not germinate. If the land has been well tilled the seedlings will appear in about sixty days. When they are from three to four feet high they may be transplanted to a permanent situation. This should be done during wet weather and the trees must be kept well manured. They must be watered on alternate days and protected from the sun. They must be cultivated for five years. Care must be taken not to strike the roots of the tree in cultivating, for if the tap root is broken the tree is sure to die. When any roots become exposed they should be covered with leaf mold or with dirt mixed with cow manure. When well started, the trees should be thinned out, leaving them from twenty to thirty feet apart, according to the richness of the soil; the richer the soil the wider the space. Before the transplanting of the seedlings from the nursery, holes are first dug and left open for a time and filled with surface soil consisting of cow dung mixed with burnt earth, but if the ground is very rich the manure may be dispensed with. The holes prepared in this way give the young plants a good start. The trees are planted in prepared holes in the bamboo baskets as they are taken from the nursery, slit down at one side. Banana plants make good shade for young trees and return good profit until they have to be cut down to give room for the growing tree. When the trees are backward in growing they should have extra care. The soil about the roots should be loosened and manuring should be done with farmyard compost lightly scattered around the trees close to the stem, so that it may work its way into the soil. To dig holes would injure the roots and might cause the tree to die.

In very dry weather it is well to cover the ground around the trees with dry leaves to protect them from the sun’s rays and to keep the moisture in the ground. On poor soil the trees must be kept manured until they are fifteen years old. They need as many as ten large baskets to a tree. The manure should be at first spread in the sunshine to kill all the insects it may contain. All parasitic and epiphytic plants which may attach themselves to the stem and branches should be removed at once, as they would have a most injurious effect.

The pruning operations are very simple. All suckers should be cut away and the lower branches should be removed gradually until there is sufficient space for working under the trees. The nutmeg trees are monœcious as well as diœcious. The sex of a tree cannot be told until it flowers, which will be in about seven years, when, on cutting the flower open longitudinally with a sharp pen-knife, the sex may be determined. (See [illustration].)

The staminate flowers are from three to five, or sometimes more, on a peduncle, and the pistillate flowers are often solitary, both kinds of flowers being small and of a yellow color (without calyx), and the perianth is bell-shaped with three or four teeth at the top.

The anthers are set around a central column, and if the flowers be fully open the yellow pollen may be easily seen in the pistillate or female flowers, in the form of a little red disk knob. Soon after the fecundation of the embryo the female flower drops off and the little knob expands, gradually increasing in growth.

Fig. A, verticle section of male flowers.
Fig. B, verticle section of female flowers.

It will be noticed that the pistil is shorter than the perianth and is swollen at the base and crowned with the stigma which is indistinctly cut into lobes. It is a good plan to plant two nuts or transplant two seedlings in one hole about two feet apart, and when the flowers appear it will seldom happen that both trees will be male trees.

After determining the sexes the cutting out of the surplus male trees should take place. Those which are to remain should be left as much on the windward side of the plantation as possible, so that the pollen may be carried by the wind to the pistils of the female trees. In this respect the parks are similar to our apple orchards. If a surplus number of male trees be left growing, they are topped, or headed down and grafted with scions from the female tree.

The parkineers[^[3]] on the Banda Islands do not expect a yield above 30 per cent. of male trees from the planted seed, and seldom so many, and they think 2 per cent. enough male trees to leave growing, while other countries look for a yield anywhere from 8 per cent. to 75 per cent. of male trees, and they estimate one male tree to eight or ten female the right proportion.