G a r d e n s o r
N u t m e g s .
world might be fupplied from hence. The ifland feems one
beautiful garden o f nutmeg trees.
T h e trees are loaden with fruit the whole year, either mature
or ripening, but it is gathered only at certain times. The
principal harveft is in the middle o f the rainy feafon, or in part
o f Juip and Augujl, there is another in 1ST«vember, and a third
in March and April. The nuts are carried home and cleanfed,
and the mace carefully taken off with a knife, and expofed to
the fun to be dried. The exterior coat is thick, like that o f a
walnut; the mace is the immediate covering o f the nutmeg,
-and poflefles the fame virtues. The oil is a well-known article,
in our ihops.
A f t e r fome time the nutmegs áre divided into three heaps;
the firft con lifts o f the fineft and largeft, which are lent to the
F-.uropean markets. The next is referved for that of India; and
the third, which is compofed o f the damaged nuts, is never lent
abroad, but referved for the oil which is expreffed from .them.
T h e green or unripe nuts are frequently preferved with
fugar, and difpofed o f in all parts o f India and China -, and even
fome are lent to Europe.
T here are, befides the genuine fpecies, fix others o f the wild
kind, called Palee, with iome diftinguiihing epithet, and alfo
Palala. After faying that thefe trees are o f little or no ufe but
for the wood, I refer to Rumphius, who* has given defcriptions
and plates o f the feveral forts.
T he references to this plant among the beft botanical writers
are as follows : Nux myrijiica femina, Clus. Exot. 13.14. Nux
* Vol. ii. p. 24. 27.
Mofchata,
Mofchata, Gerard, 1536. Bauhin, Pinax, 407. Nux Myrijiica,
Rumph. Amb. ii. p. 14. tab. 4. Myrijiica officinalis, Linn. Supp. 265.
Le Mufcadier, Sonnerat, N. Guinee, p. 194. tab. 116. 117. 118:
and nutmeg tree, Woodville, Medic. Bot. ii. 363. tab. 134.
N u t m e g s are the food of a variety of birds, fuch as Cock- F o o d o r B ir d s .
atoos, different forts o f pigeons, Jaar vogels, or the wreathed
Horn-bills, Latham, i. 358. The pigeons are generally fuppofed
to be the diffeminators o f thefe valuable fpices, and have been
abfurdly imagined as the only inftruments o f their propagation;
but the nuts grow equally well by the common method o f fow-
ing. The pigeons pull off the external coat, before they devour
the nu t; the mace is digefted, but the kernel paiTes through
them entire; fuch as falls among the thick grafs, is fure to fuc-
ceed. By this accident the trees are fpread over all the iflands,
and fome which are very diftant, fo as to elude the utmoft diligence
of the Hutch to effeit the total extirpation o f the nutmeg.
T h e Columba eznea o f Linnaus, PI. Enl. 164, or the Nutmeg N u t m e .
Pigeon o f Latham, iv. 636. and var A. 637, Sonnerat, 168. tab. 102,
is the firft fpecies. The whole upper part o f the body is .green
gloffed with gold and copper. A bird of this kind, perhaps a
variety, or perhaps of a different ,fex, was fhot by John Reinhold
Forjler on the ifland of Rotterdam, with t wo undigefted nutmegs
in its craw, a proof how remotely this fpice may be difleminated;
what folly it is therefore in the Hutch to endeavour to confine
■it to the narrow bounds o f . the Mollucca or ' Banda groups,
when the very fowls of the air are able to baffle fo unjuft a monopoly.
T h e next, the White, Latham, 638; Sonnerat. N. Guinee,
169.