HOW NUTMEGS GROW

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 5372, 3 September 1904, Page 13

HOW NUTMEGS GROW

Is iit megs grow on little trees which look like pear trees, and which are generally not over 20 ft high. The flowers are very much liko tho lily at the valley. They are pal© and very fx-a-gxamt. The nutmeg is the seed of the fruit, and mate is the thin covering over tho seed. The fruit is about the size of a poach. When ripe it breaks open and -shows a little nut inside. Ths trees grow on tho islands of Asia and tropical Amoi-ica. They beax- fruit 70 or 80 yeax-s, having rips fruit upon them all tlx© season. A fino tree in Jamaica has over 400 nutmegs on it every year. The Dutch used to have all this nutmeg trade, as they owned tho Banda Islands, and conquered all the traders, and dost roved the tress. To keep tho px-ioo up they onda 'burned three piles of nutmegs, each of .which was us big as a church, -t Nature did not sympathise with such meanness. Tho nutmeg pigeon, found in all tho Indian Islands, did for the world what the Dutch had determined should not bo don©—carried those nuts, which are their food, into all tho surrounding countries, and trees grow again, and tho world had tho benefit. The fruit is gathered three times a year—about 41b from each tree. Tho outer husk is removed, and the inner husk is dried for maco. Tho nutmegs •are dried over a slow fix - ©, sometimes for two months. Thed they am sorted, packed, and shipped to all parts of the world.