NUTMEG-TREE. A native of the Mo lucca, or Spice Islands, principally con fined to that group denominated the Islands of Banda, lying in lat. 4° 80' south. It bears both blossom and fruit, at all seasons of the year, and assists with other aromatic trees and shrubs, to form that atmosphere of fragrance, in the upper regions of the air, in which the natives believe the birds of paradise per petually float.
While the Dutch remained possessors of the Spice Islands, the quantity of nutmegs and mace exported from their nutmeg-grounds, circumscribed as they were, was enormous • 250,000 lbs. annu ally used to be vended in Europe, and nearly half that amount in the East In dies. Of mace, the average has been 90,000 lbs sold in Europe, and 10,000 lbs. in the East Indies.
When the Islands were taken by the British, in 1796, the importations of the East India Company into England alone, in the two years following the capture, were, of nutmegs, 129,782 lbs., and of mace 286,000 lbs. When the crops of spice were superabundant, and the price likely to be reduced, the Dutch destroyed immense quantities of the fruit. A Hol lander informed Sir Wm. Temple, that, at one time, he saw three piles of nut megs burnt, each of which was larger than a church could hold.
In the Moluccas, the gathering of the i fruit takes place at three periods, in July • or August, when the nutmegs are most abundant, but the mace thinner than in smaller fruits, gathered in November ; the third harvest is in March or April, when the nuts, as well as the mace, are in the greatest perfection. The outer
pulpy coat is removed, and. afterwards., the mace, with a knife. The nuts are placed over a slow fire, when the shell becomes very brittle, and the seeds, or nutmegs, drop out ; these are then soaked in sea-water, and impregnated with lime, a process which answers the double pur pose of securing the seeds from the attack of insects, and, of destroying their is simply dried in the sun, and then sprinkled with salt-water, after which it is fit for exportation.
The color, when fresh, is a brilliant scarlet. When dry, it becomes much more horny, of a yellow-brown color, and very brittle. The shell very hard, rugged dark-biown, glossy, about half a line thick, pale and smooth within. This immediately envelopes the seed, or nut meg, which is of an oval elliptical form, pale brown, quite smooth, when first de prived of its shell, but soon becomes shrivelled, so as to have irregular, verti cal lines, or furrows on its surface. Its outside very thin ; its inner substance or albumen is firm, hut fleshy, whitish, but so traversed with red-brown veins, which abound in oil, as to appear beautifully marbled. Near the base of the albumen, and imbedded in a cavity in its substance, is situated the embryo, which is large, fleshy, yellowish-white, rounded below, where is the radicle ; its cotyledons, of two large, somewhat foliaceous, plicate lobes, in the centre of which is seen the plumule.