The botanic gardens have been largely instrumental in extending nutmeg cultivation in the tropical English possessions. Besides Myristica fragrans there are several other species which are found useful. M. Otoba of the U. S. of Colombia yields an edible article known as Santa Fe nutmeg. The seeds of the tropical M. sebifera (tallow nutmeg) yield a fixed oil or fat used in making soap and candles. This oil is also known as American nutmeg oil.

The trees are produced from seeds. After sprouting the plants are transferred to pots, in which they are kept until ready for the nutmeg plantation. Transferring from the pots to the soil must be done carefully, as any considerible injury to the terminal rootlets kills the plants. A rich, loamy soil with considerable moisture is required for the favorable and rapid growth of the plants. They thrive best in river valleys, from sea-level to 300 and 400 feet or even to an elevation of 2,000 feet. The trees are usually planted twenty-five or thirty feet apart , in protected situations, so as to shelter them from strong winds and excessive sunlight.

The trees do not yield a crop until about the ninth year and continue productive for seventy or eighty years. Each tree yields on an average about ten pounds of nutmegs and about one pound of mace annually. If the trees are well cared for and the soil well fertilized, the yield is much greater, even tenfold.

As already stated the nutmeg plant is dioecious. A seed may therefore develop into a male or female plant; if a male plant it will of course not produce nutmegs. The only way to learn whether it is one or the other is to wait until the first flowers are formed during the fifth or sixth year. The planter, does, however, not sit by and wait; he simply grafts the young shoots with branches of the female tree. Some male trees, about one to twenty female trees, are allowed to mature in order that pollination, by insects, may be possible, as without pollination and subsequent fertilization the seed could not develop.

The tree bears fruit all the year round so that nutmegs may be collected at all times. It is, however, customary to collect two principal crops, one during October, November, and December, and another during April, May, and June.

The nuts are picked by hand or gathered by means of long hooks and the thick pericarp removed. The red arillus is also carefully removed and flattened between blocks of wood so as to reduce the danger of breaking as much as possible. Mace and nuts are then dried separately.

The nuts are placed upon hurdles for several weeks until the kernels, nutmegs, rattle inside of the thin, tasteless, and odorless hard shell. This shell is now carefully broken and removed; the worm eaten nutmegs are thrown away and the sound ones are rolled in powdered lime and again dried for several weeks. Generally the drying is done over a smoldering fire so that the nuts are really smoke dried. For shipment they are packed in air-tight boxes which have been smoked and dusted with lime on the inside. Liming gives the nuts a peculiar mottled appearance and tends to destroy parasites which may be present.

Mace loses its carmine color upon drying and becomes reddish-brown and very brittle. It has an odor and taste similar to those of the nut, but is more delicately aromatic. Wild or Bombay mace is obtained from Myristica fatua and is frequently used to adulterate the true mace or Banda mace. The nuts of M. fatua are longer than those of M. fragrans and are therefore designated as long nutmegs; the term "male nutmegs" applied to them is incorrect. The long nutmeg is greatly inferior to the true nutmeg, or round nutmeg as it is sometimes called.

Banda supplies by far the most nutmegs at the present time. Penang nutmegs are of excellent quality and are always placed upon the market unlimed, but they are frequently limed subsequently in foreign ports and markets. Singapore nutmegs are usually unlimed. Nutmegs are generally designated by the name of the country from which they are obtained, as Dutch or Batavian, Sumatra, Penang, Singapore, Java, and Banda nutmegs.