The nutmeg fruit includes, first, the outer or fleshy membranous part; second, the substance covering the inner shell of the nutmeg, known as mace; next, the inner shell; and, finally, the kernel or nutmeg.
The native women and children gather the fruit twice each day, except Sundays, from under the trees and carry them into the boucan, barn, or sheds, made of brick with terraced roofs, rejecting the outer shell or husk. In the Straits Settlement, if the trees are not too high (the highest tree not being over thirty-five feet on Penang Island), the nuts are beaten off by means of long bamboo poles. In the Banda Islands the fruit is gathered by the use of a neat oval bamboo basket, partly open at the top, furnished with a couple of prongs. With these prongs the harvester catches the fruit stalk and by a gentle pull causes the nuts to fall into the basket, which will hold three or four. By using this method the mace will not be bruised as it would be by falling to the ground, and they have a skin more free from blemish, and it is thinner compared with the fruit and of a well-uniformed proportion.
The outer shell or husk, which is harder than that of a filbert, is removed by one man placing the nuts on a sort of a drum head and another beating them with a flat board, a process which will not bruise the nuts. One man will beat out as many in this way as six men can do in the way which is employed at the Straits. After the envelope of the curious, red-colored network (mace) is taken off the nutmegs are placed in receptacles which have fine wire-mesh bottoms, made of splints, called by the natives neebongs, to allow the air to pass through, or, by being elevated above each other, they are kept before a fire for a month or more, the first elevated being about ten feet from the ground. After this they are exposed to the sun two hours each day for two or three days until they rattle inside the shell when shaken. They cannot be removed when green without damage to the nut. They are then cracked by beating with great care, as hard blows would cause a black spot on the nuts, affecting the sale. They are then assorted into three grades, the finest are exported, the second are reserved for home consumption, and the third grade, made up of small, damaged, or unripe stock, are burned or used for nutmeg butter. Nutmegs are often affected by black spots or gangrene on the outer covering, caused by an insect, which deposits its larvæ on it in the husk and feeds on the saccharine matter of the outer covering until it bursts, when it makes its way into the soft nut itself.
The number one nutmegs are put up in half piculs (heavy-made boxes) containing sixty to sixty-five pounds. The ovate nutmeg seed is marked with impressions like the lobes or arillus (mace) which covers it, one side being of a paler hue and slightly flattened, and having the shape of the outer shell, with corresponding dimensions in size, the largest being about one inch long by eight-tenths of an inch broad. Four such nuts will weigh one ounce. They are of a grayish or brown color, but they are coarsely furrowed and longitudinally veined, and are marked on the flatter side with a shallow groove.
There are only three kinds of nutmegs generally known to the trade. The darker brown, which is the fruit of the myristica fragrans, is cultivated in Penang and is known as the Penang nutmeg. It is exported from the city of Penang (Betel-nut City, [Fig. 2]). The pale-brown, lined, Singapore or Batavian ([Fig. 4]), is named from the city of Batavia, on the Island of Java, from which this variety is exported. The long, slender, wild nutmegs ([Fig. 3]) are known as Macassars, from the city of Macassar (called by the natives Mangkasara) on the Island of Celebes, the principal city of export. But the three kinds are distinguished by the planters as male or barren; second, the round female (nux myristica fœmina or green) (nux maschata fructo rotundo), and the royal.
The royal nutmeg is no larger than a peanut (nux maschata rigia) and produces the long nut which has the aril or mace much longer than the nut, while the true queen or female, which is the more valuable round nutmeg, has its mace extending only half way down the nut.
The average yield at six or seven years, at which time the trees begin to bear, is five to six pounds, and a ten-year-old tree will produce from ten to fifteen pounds, and will cover an area of about five hundred square feet. This yield, at forty cents per pound, including the mace, would bring $300 per acre, besides the other ingredients yielded, which are valuable. The older the tree the greater the yield, and, of course, the tree is valued accordingly. There is a tree on the Island of Jamaica which bears over 4,000 nutmegs every year.
Nutmegs vary greatly in size, running from 60’s to 120’s as follows: large, 60’s to 80’s to the pound; medium, 85’s to 95’s; small, 100’s to 130’s. There are probably more of the 110 size used than of all other sizes combined. Nutmegs are assorted into the several sizes found on the market by passing them over different mesh sieves. This process is called garbling.
The Penang nutmeg, the fruit of the myristica fragrans, called by the Hindustanee and Bengalee jaiphal, or true nutmeg, as its name implies, which is the finest, is of a brown color and shaped like a damson plum. It is furrowed on the interior and grayish inside, with veins of red running through it, and possesses a fine, delicate aroma of great strength and flavor. The Penang nutmegs are not to be found in the spice-mill stock because the poorer Batavia or the wild Macassars will grind better, their worm holes will not show in the meal, and they are not difficult to powder. Liming nutmegs by the Dutch to prevent their sprouting has lead to misunderstanding and many vices. Some think limed nutmegs the best, taking them in preference to the fine, brown Penang, and are willing to pay higher prices for them. Such buyers seem to know nothing about the convincing, easy tests that may be made by weighing, the pure nutmegs being heavier on account of the oil they contain, and by scraping the nut with the finger nail to note if the oil starts.
Although there are only four kinds of nutmegs known to the trade there are more than twenty-five (many give as many as forty) different varieties. Those known to commerce, when found in the order of their quality, are as follows: The Penang, of which there were exported in 1904, 2,828 piculs, valued at $175,592, which are unlimed and are brown; second, Dutch limed or Batavians; third, Singapore, which are a rougher, unlimed, narrower kind, and of somewhat less value than the Dutch Batavia; fourth,[[4]] “long” or “wild” or “male nutmeg,” nux myristicamas, Clusius (nux maschata fructo oblongo C. bouchin), which is the product of myristica fatua. In addition to these, we have the Malabar, found in the district of Malabar, province of Madras, British India, which is the product of myristica Malabarica. It resembles a date in size and shape, and is closely allied to the long nutmeg, but has less flavor. It is called by the Hindustanee and Bengalee jaiphal, and those of myristica Malabarica, “ran jaiphal,” and “ramphal,” and in the native Malabar dialect, “panam palka,” and is largely used as an adulterant for powdered true nutmeg.