NUTMEGS
Though all your parts we rashly grate
To particles most fine,
You yet return for cruel strokes,
Tears filled with perfume fine.
NUTMEGS 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.
[Illustration: Fig. A, verticle section of male flowers.]
[Illustration: 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.
-----
Footnote 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.
[Illustration: 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.
-----
Footnote 4:
J. C. Sawyer’s Odorographia, Second Series.
[Illustration: HARBOR OF MACASSAR, CELEBES ISLANDS]
[Illustration: 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 of nutmeg, concrete oil, or the mace oil of commerce (French,
_beurre de mascade_; German, _masket butter_, _muskatnussal_), and as
Banda soap, sometimes made from the distilled nutmeg leaves. It has an
agreeable odor and a greasy taste, melts at 45 degrees C., and dissolves
in four times its volume of warm alcohol, 8 per cent. pure, or in two
parts warm ether. The Banda soap is soft to the touch, has a yellow
color, and is sometimes counterfeited by using a foreign fatty
substance, as palm oil, suet, wax, and animal fat, boiled with powdered
nutmeg and flavored with sassafras, which gives it the right color and
flavor. The best nutmeg oil is imported from India, often adulterated by
the distillation of the leaves of the eucalyptus alba, which has a
nutmeg odor and flavor. The fleshy part of the nutmeg fruit is often
preserved in sugar and eaten as sweetmeats.
London’s annual import of nutmegs is 400,000 to 800,000 pounds, and of
mace from 60,000 to 80,000 pounds. An amusing incident is told of an
English governor sent to the Isle of Ceylon who, noting the statistics
that nutmegs were very abundant and cheap, and mace was scarce and high,
called his council together and said: “We must raise less nutmegs and
more mace.”
The tissue of the seed can be cut with equal facility in any direction.
By the microscopic study of a transverse section of a cut nutmeg we find
the testa consists mainly of long, thin, radially arranged, rigid cells,
which are closely interlaced and do not exhibit any distinct cavities.
The endopleora, which forms the adhering coat of the kernel and
penetrates into it, consists of soft-walled, red-brown tissue, with
small scattered bundles of vessels, thereby imparting the peculiar
marbled appearance so familiar in a cut nutmeg. In the outer layer the
endopleora exhibits small collapsed cells, but the tissue which fills
the folds that dip into the interior consists of much larger cells. The
tissue of the albumen is formed of soft-walled parenchyma which is
densely filled with conspicuous starch grains and with fat partly
crystallized. Among the prismatic crystals of fat, large, thick, rhombic
or six-sided tables may often be observed. With these are associated
grains of albuminoid matter, partly crystallized.
In carefully made preparations from the whole nutmeg, the structure
above described may be made out by care and patience, but in the ground
only the interior parenchyma cells with their starch contents can be
seen when mounted in water, with the alternate use of common and
polarized light. The fatty crystals are not observed and the fragments
of the endopleora, or red-brown tissue, are only detected by their
colors.
In chloral-hydrate the starch cells and grains are swollen, but the
red-brown tissue is much more transparent, sufficiently so, in fact, to
reveal any differences between it and any adulterant which might bear a
resemblance. There are but few bundles of fibers to be found, and the
structure as a whole will be found so simple that the addition of any
foreign material can be readily detected.
The nutmeg owes its flavor and aroma to the oil it contains, which is
soluble in alcohol and may be obtained by distillation of the pulverized
nuts, the yield being from 8 to 10 per cent. The oil is straw colored,
with a specific gravity of 0.093, consisting principally of a
hydrocarbon, C_{10}H_{16}, boiling at 165 degrees C. This appears by
research to be a mixture of at least two hydrocarbons—one a terpene,
boiling at 163 degrees; the other, ordinary cymene, the cymene being
extracted by treating the mixture of hydrocarbons with sulphuric acid,
whereby the terpene becomes resinized and, on distillation with water,
the cymene passes over unaltered; when purified, this was found to be
identical with all the other known cymenes.
Oil of nutmegs also contains an oxygenated constituent, termed
myristicol, whose assigned formula is C_{10}H_{14}O, boiling near 212
degrees. Examined by polarized light in a 200-millimeter tube, oil of
nutmeg, distilled, was found to deviate the ray 15.3 degrees to the
right, and oil of long nutmeg 28.7 degrees to the right. A more minute
analysis might be given, but enough has been said to meet all
requirements for distinguishing between the pure and the adulterated
nutmegs. To add more might be confusing, and, since at present nutmegs
are almost entirely sold whole and grated in the kitchen, attempts at
adulteration have been very few.
Chemical composition of nutmegs:
Water, 6.08
Ash, 3.27
Volatile Oil, 2.84
Fixed Oil or Fat, 34.37
Starch, etc., 36.98
Crude Fiber, 11.30
Albuminoids, 5.16
Nitrogen, .83
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