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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 The chemical composition of ginger oil remains unknown, but it is
known to contain camphene and other ingredients; its complex
nature is indicated by the wide range of its boiling point.
When distilled, after drying over CaCl2, the boil begins to pass
over at 140 degrees C., accompanied by a few drops of aqueous
fluid, the temperature constantly and rapidly rising to about 240
degrees, the chief portion of the oil coming over between 240
degrees and 270 degrees C. and a little passes over between 270
degrees and 300 degrees, but evidently accompanied by
decomposition products, a transparent, brown, tenacious, semi-solid
residue remaining in flask.
The lower boiling products retain the ginger aroma, which is noted
when diluted with spirits, and are much more soluble in rectified
spirits than higher fractions. Oil of ginger is yellow in color and its
odor is intensely like that of the root; that of Jamaica is the most
fragrant, but has not the burning, pungent taste of ginger, which is
due to gingerol, the active pungent principle of the root.
Gingerol exists in the dried rhizomes to the extent of from 0.600
to 1.450 per cent. It is of a pale straw color and odorless, with a
pungent, bitter taste. It is soluble in alcohol in even 50 per cent.
dilution; it is also soluble in benzene, volatile oils, carbon disulphide,
solution of potash and ammonia, and glacial acetic acid, and very
slightly soluble in petroleum ether, consisting of resin, starch,
mucilage, and paraffine, organic acids, oxalic acids as CaC2C4
cellulose albuminoids, etc., which constituents of ginger are found to
be odorless and tasteless.
The alcoholic solution is neutral in reaction and gives no
precipitate with the acetates of lead nor with lime, and does not
yield glucose when treated with diluted sulphuric acid. Strong
sulphuric acid dissolves it with the production of a brown color;
hydrochloric acid does not affect it. Nitric acid converts it into a
blood-red resinous substance.
 Adulterants of ginger are sago, tapioca, flour of rice, wheat, and
potatoes, Cayenne and mustard hulls, and tumeric and exhausted
ginger. The foreign starches, Cayenne, and mustard hulls are easily
detected, but the tumeric (East India arrowroot) cells, from their
resemblance to the resin globules of the ginger, are most confusing.
For detection of exhausted ginger recourse must be had to
proximate analysis.
Chemical composition of ginger:
Ash may vary from 3.4 to 8 per cent.; fiber, 1.7 to 9 per cent.
The white ginger has less ash than the dark, as is also the case in
regard to the percentage of fiber.
Water, 11.00 to 9.10
Ash, 7.02 to 3.39
Volatile Oil, 2.54 to .96
Fixed Oil, 4.58 to 2.29
Starch, 53.33 to 46.16
Crude Fiber, 7.65 to 1.70
Albuminoids, 10.85 to 5.25

It is said that the water and starch extract from the weight of the
newly dug root 75 to 85 per cent., and yet the dried root retains all
the valuable aromatic qualities.
 NUTMEG. (Myristica)
1 Nutmeg with Mace and part inner shell
 2 Brown Pedang
3 Long Macassar with Mace
4 Singapore or Batavia
5 Flowering twig with leaf
6 Burr just opening showing the Mace
 CHAPTER XII

NUTMEGS

Though all your parts we rashly grate

To particles most fine,
You yet return for cruel strokes,
Tears filled with perfume fine.

N UTMEGS are the fruit of Myristica fragrans (natural order

Myristicaceoe) maschata officinalis. Myristica is founded upon
the Greek word myrrh, myristikas, sweet smelling, and belongs to
the custard family.
Italian, Nace moscada; French, Muscades et macis or Naix
muscade; Portuguese, Noiz mascada; German, Muskatnusse and
Muskatbluther.
The nutmeg was known by the Persians (as jouzbewa) and by the
Arabians (jowzalteib) in the eighth century. There are about forty
different species. Although the name myristikas (sweet smelling)
was given to the genus on account of the odor of its fruit, there is a
material difference in the several species, the commercial value of
the fruit depending upon the degree in which the essential oil
producing this perfume is present.
The true nutmeg is the kernel, mostly consisting of the albumen of
the fruit or the seed of a diœcious evergreen tree, which in some
countries, as in New Guinea, grows from fifty to sixty feet high. It is
a native of the Molucca Islands. The nutmeg gardens of the world
are the Banda Islands belonging to the East Indies, but the nutmeg
is also found in the West Indies on the Island of Jamaica, which is
quite noted for its nutmeg plantations. Nutmegs are also found in
Bengal, Singapore, Penang, and French Guinea and Brazil, in the
west peninsula of New Guinea, Damma, Amboina, Ceram, Boro,
Boero or Bouro, Gilolo, Sumatra, and they have been successfully
introduced in Ternate, Menando, in the Celebes group, and in Java
and Bourbon or Reunion, but not in the Philippines. They do not do
well except between 12 degrees north and 5 degrees south of the
equator. They are found growing wild in the Banda Islands, to which
they are indigenous. Three of these islands are noted for their
nutmeg gardens, viz.: Great Banda or Lantor (Lantor Banda), Pulo
Nera, and Goenong Api. The three islands together contain thirty-
four parks, of which Great Banda has twenty-five, Goenong Api six,
and Pulo Nera three.
These parks contain 319,804 bearing trees, which produce
annually about 4,000 piculs of 139½ pounds each of nutmegs, and
1,000 pounds of mace. This yield gives about one and one-half
catties of 139 pounds each of spice to each tree per annum. But
much of the fruit is lost on account of the height of the trees, and
the inaccessible places in which many of the nuts fall. Many drop
into the streams and float away, and many are lost by being worm-
eaten, also many are eaten by field rats. The entire group of Banda
Islands is comprised within a space seven miles long and three miles
wide; in fact, these are the dimensions of the Island of Lantor itself.
The islands are of a light volcanic soil, and the great moisture, due
to the numerous rains, makes them most favorable for nutmeg
raising, and seems almost perfectly to suit the requirements of the
tree. The only cultivation required is to keep the grass and weeds
and underbrush cut, no manuring or artificial stimulus being needed.
Almost the entire surface of the islands is planted with nutmeg trees.
The labor is performed by Dutch convicts, who are banished to these
islands, there being no native population.
Plants which spring up spontaneously from the seed are taken up
and transplanted by simply heeling in the ground of the required
vacancy. In some places clumps of trees are found growing not more
than ten to twelve feet apart under the shade of the canarium
commune. In fact, the nutmeg is more collected than cultivated in
the Banda Islands. The trees grow from fifty to sixty feet high, while
those of the Straits are but a shrub in comparison, and in other
countries they grow only from twenty to forty feet high, and need
much manuring and very careful cultivation. It would appear as if
the trees were overshaded in the Straits, and yet they require much
shade to protect them from the strong winds which prevail there.
When a nutmeg plantation is to be started, great care must be
taken to select a good, rich, virgin soil, formed of a deep loam with
good drainage, as the plants will not thrive on a sandy soil. The
rainfall should be at least from sixty to seventy inches per annum.
Although the nutmeg plant is essentially a lowland plant, flourishing
from two hundred to four hundred feet above sea level, and not
proving successful at a higher elevation than fifteen hundred feet, it
must be kept free from stagnant water about its roots, for this would
surely kill it. Virgin forest lands, with a soil covered with a layer of
leaf mold or rotten wood, is well adapted to the cultivation of the
plant, and a hot, moist climate is requisite. Plenty of shade is
necessary to protect the trees from the prevailing winds which would
scatter the flowers and uproot the trees, as the roots take but a
slender hold in the ground. Large trees should not be allowed to
grow with spice trees, as they would exclude the vivifying rays of the
sun and arrest the fall of the night dews, which are necessary for
quantity as well as quality of the nutmegs. Large trees would also
rob the soil of its richness. A double row of cassuarina littorea and
cerbera manghas planted at the windward side of the plantations will
afford ample shade and protection from the winds, and trees with
these advantages will give good crops.
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.

3. The parkineers is a term used in the Banda Islands.

The nutmeg tree is a handsome, bushy evergreen with straight

and lofty undivided trunk, and with reddish-brown bark and
verticillate branching head, much resembling our apple tree. It is cut
back in the Straits to about twenty feet. The bark on the young
branches is bright green, the dark, shining leaves, glossy on the
upper surface and whitish below, are alternate, simple, and entire
and oblong and obliptic and very aromatic. They are strongly veined,
the petiolate being devoid of stipules or having very short foot
stalks.
The nutmeg tree will begin to bear when from five to six years old
and will then produce from five to six pounds of nutmegs and half a
pound of mace to a tree. The yield is more profitable when the tree
is ten years old. The tree will continue to produce fruit at sixty years
of age, and has been known to bear a crop when one hundred years
old. The male tree has a much shorter life than the fruit-bearing
trees. The flowers are very small and are clustered in the axils of the
leaves. They are a pale yellow and have a fragrance much like that
of the lily of the valley.
The nuts will often split before reaching maturity, by reason of
cold, damp weather and sudden changes. The nutmeg tree, like the
orange, is a constant bearer, producing two crops in one year, and
sometimes three, in the East. A much larger crop, however, is
harvested in the later months of the year, and the smaller crops in
April, May, and June, and even in July. Some are harvested every
month of the year, as is the case to some extent on the Banda
Islands, and they are delivered every month to the government
boats. But the months especially devoted to harvesting are the same
on the Banda Islands as in the Straits Settlement. From the Straits
the shipments are made quarterly.
 The nutmeg fruit is about three inches long and about two inches
in diameter, and is found intermingled with the flowers of the tree, it
requires from six to nine months to mature; fruits all the year
around in a hot, moist climate. In the Banda Islands the fruit hangs
upon longer and more slender stalks than is the case in the Straits
Settlement. The fruit hangs pendulous from the tree and is fleshy
and firm. At first it is round or oval and smooth, much like a damson
plum, but it soon takes on the marked longitudinal, dented line and
pale green color—characteristics that give it more the appearance of
a peach or an apricot. It finally changes to a golden or yellow color
and to the shape of a pear when ripe. This outer covering, which is
at first thin, gradually grows fleshy, abounding in an astringent mass
which becomes dry and leathery, at which time it bursts open into
two valves from the apex, disclosing a brilliant scarlet aril or net-like
membrane, revealing the nutmeg kernel, which is closely invested in
a thin brown shell, which separates the kernel from the aril or mace
which envelopes both.
In the early days the Dutch owned the Banda Islands. They
attempted to control the nutmeg trade. Accordingly, they used to
heat or lime the kernels before shipping, to keep them from
sprouting and so to prevent the propagation of the trees. At one
time they burned three piles of nutmegs, each as large as a church,
to keep up the price. But Nature did not fancy this kind of business
and a large pigeon, called the “nutmeg pigeon,” also known by the
name of walor and nut eater (species of carpophoga), was attracted
by the bright color of the mace and, feeding on it extensively,
swallowing the mace and rejecting the nutmegs, accomplished what
the Dutch tried to prevent, by planting the nuts in all the
surrounding countries of Penang, China, Ceylon, and India. Thus the
world at large was benefited.
HARVESTING NUTMEGS
 The brown shell which covers the nutmeg has about one-fourth
the weight of the nutmeg kernel. When the nutmegs are exported
without removing the shell they keep better, but the cost of freight
to the importers is increased.
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.

4. J. C. Sawyer’s Odorographia, Second Series.

HARBOR OF MACASSAR, CELEBES ISLANDS
 A FOREST

The wild nutmeg (myristica argentea) tree grows very high with a
leaf equal in size to the horse chestnut, with a silvery top, and in
Germany it is called the “horse nutmeg.” It is found in New Guinea,
Amboina, and the Banda Islands. The nuts, when fresh from the
trees, are about four and one-half centimeters to six and one-half
centimeters in length, and four and one-half centimeters to five and
one-half centimeters in diameter. They are first of a bright red, but
later scattered yellow-brown veins or specks appear which contain
the aroma. After the husk is removed, the nut is about three and
one-half to four and one-half centimeters long and from two to two
and one-half centimeters in diameter, and the testa is nearly one
millimeter thick. They abound in a disagreeable oil, which, of course,
will rob them of the pleasant nutmeg flavor which is found in the
cultivated nut. The thick pericarp or outer covering is hard and
brittle. The mace which covered it is insipid, is of a reddish color, has
a disagreeable odor and it generally consists of four stripes which
are united above and below. It is broadest at the base, gradually
narrowing toward the end. The fruit is elongated, or ellipsoidal,
rusty, tomentose, in shape like a date, and differs from the true
nutmeg in being less marked by the arillus furrows. The cotyledons
are joined in a disc swelled at its edges to five millimeters diameter,
and the endosperm contains much starch.
Myristica argentea nutmegs are sometimes used medicinally for
dysentery, headache, and other ailments, and those long nutmegs
(male), wild myristica tomentosa (myristica fatua), are next in flavor
to the true myristica fragrans, and are the kind sold in the market as
Macassars. Another kind scarcely worthy of mention is the myristica
succedanea, a variety found on the Island of Tidor, which is very
similar to the myristica fragrans. Other so-called nuts which rarely
figure in our market except as a substitute to adulterate are the
American, Jamaicans, or Calabash (monodora myristica), Brazilian
(cryptocarya maschata), Californian or stinking (torreya myristica),
Madagascar or clove (agathophyllum aromaticum), Peruvian (laurelia
semperviren), Plume (atherosperma maschata), Sante Fe (myristica
otoba) of New Granada and the myristica sebifera virola sebifera
aublet, the seed of which furnishes an abundance of aromatic yellow
tallow which has a crystalline appearance and is suitable to
manufacture into candles. All of these varieties are not much better
than the wooden nutmegs from the Nutmeg State, or the one made
by the heathen Chinese out of sawdust and clay.
Batavia nutmegs are often attacked by beetles or are worm eaten.
In this case they are pickled in lime water made from calcined shell-
fish and mixed with water until it is of a semi-fluid consistency. Into
this mixture they plunge the nutmegs (which have been put in
bamboo baskets) two or three times until they are completely
covered with it. Next they are put in heaps and are allowed to
sweat. After this they are packed in boxes or barrels made of the
best Java teak for exportation, with the worm holes plugged up.
Sometimes it is thought quite necessary to lime the Batavia nuts
(the kind most commonly used) before shipping, not only to protect
them from the ravages of the beetles or worms which attack them,
but also to prevent germination. But it has been proven that this
process is perfectly unnecessary, as a simple exposure of the nuts to
the action of the sun is sufficient to destroy the vitality of the
embryo. It is also proven to be unnecessary, since the true brown
Penang is shipped without liming. If lime is used, however, it should
be in a dry state. After all that has been said, it is evident that the
dealer or the consumer must be either foolish or ignorant who will
reject the fancy, round, brown Penang nutmegs for the limed Batavia
because it pleases the eye, and will for no other reason buy old
worm-eaten nuts with plugged-up holes, relimed to give them a new
appearance. The new coat of lime costs but little, but when the case
is empty there is found from one to two pounds of lime in the
bottom, not covered by tare, which has cost the purchaser the price
of good nutmegs. Just so long as the trade will demand this class of
stock, just so long will deception be practiced and inferior stock will
be found on the market.
 All nutmegs have a market value and must be sold. In selecting
stock, pick out of a lot the most inferior looking nut and cut it into
two parts. If it cuts firm like wood and has plenty of oil and no worm
holes, there is not apt to be any danger of inferior nuts in the
balance of the stock.
In using nutmegs always grate from the flower end instead of the
stem end.
Good, fresh nutmegs cannot be ground by an ordinary burr stone,
such as is used in spice mills, but must first be broken or cracked in
a cracking machine. This machine consists of a roller provided with
coarse teeth which revolve through similar stationary teeth, the
material being retained by a semi-circular perforated plate until it is
reduced to the size of the perforation or about the size of a coffee
bean. After this it is pulverized by pounding or by stamps, as they
are called, in the same way that mustard seed is pulverized.
Sometimes the nuts are extensively mixed with some dry, foreign
material, in which case they may be ground on the burr stone by an
experienced miller. One or two stamps may be used in powdering
nutmegs and mace, two being about all one man can well handle.
Powdered nutmegs soon lose their flavor by standing, on account of
the loss of oil, but as they have the consistency of tallow, the flavor
is for a time preserved.
Nutmeg butter or balsam of nutmeg is often obtained by
powdering the broken nuts, when fresh, to a fine powder or paste,
and then steaming them for five or six hours. The substance is then
put into bags, placed between heated iron wedges or plates and is
subjected to a strong pressure, which presses out the fluid (though
this is sometimes extracted by ether or alcohol), which is about 20
to 25 per cent. of the mass. Ten to 12 per cent. of this fluid is an
orange-colored oil, which gives it an agreeable odor. When it is cold
it becomes somewhat spongy and has a marbled or mottled
appearance. It becomes hard with age and is exported in small
bricks, ten inches by two and one-half inches, wrapped in palm
leaves. It is known under several names, as nutmeg butter, balsam
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