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 dioecious 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 monoecious as well as dioecious. 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.

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.

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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.

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 foemina 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.

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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, C₁₀H₁₆, 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 C₁₀H₁₄O, 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: