All The Year Round Flowers And
Ripe Fruit Are To Be Found, And None Of Those Diseases Occur
Which Under A Forced And Unnatural System Of Cultivation Have
Ruined The Nutmeg Planters Of Singapore And Penang.
Few cultivated plants are more beautiful than nutmeg-trees.
They
are handsomely shaped and glossy-leaved, growing to the height of
twenty or thirty feet, and bearing small yellowish flowers. The
fruit is the size and colour of a peach, but rather oval. It is
of a tough fleshy consistence, but when ripe splits open, and
shows the dark-brown nut within, covered with the crimson mace,
and is then a most beautiful object. Within the thin, hard shell
of the nut is the seed, which is the nutmeg of commerce. The nuts
are eaten by the large pigeons of Banda, which digest the mace,
but cast up the nut with its seed uninjured.
The nutmeg trade has hitherto been a strict monopoly of the Dutch
Government; but since leaving the country I believe that this
monopoly has been partially or wholly discontinued, a proceeding
which appears exceedingly injudicious and quite unnecessary.
There are cases in which monopolies are perfectly justifiable,
and I believe this to be one of them. A small country like
Holland cannot afford to keep distant and expensive colonies at
a loss; and having possession of a very small island where a
valuable product, not a necessity of life, can be obtained at
little cost, it is almost the duty of the state to monopolise
it.
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