The nurseries being established, the ground cleared and ready, the next proceeding is to lay out and dig holes about 26 or 30 feet apart, and as the quincunx order has so many advantages, it is the form I would recommend for adoption.  The holes should be at least six feet in diameter, and about four feet deep, and when refilled the surface soil is to be used, and not that which is taken out of the hole.  Each hole should be filled up about one foot higher than the surrounding ground, to allow for the settling of the soil and the sinking of the tree, which, planted at this height, will in a few years be found below the level.  Over each hole thus filled up, a shed, made of Attap leaves or other shelter, closed on two sides, east and west, and proportioned to the size of the plant, is to be erected.  It is not a bad plan to leave an open space in the centre of the top of each shed, about twelve inches wide, by which the young plant can obtain the benefit of the dew and gentle rains, which more than compensates for the few rays of sun that can only fall upon it whilst that body is vertical.  After the sheds have been completed, each hole should have added to it a couple of baskets of well decomposed manure, and an equal quantity of burned earth, when all is ready for the reception of the plant, which, having been set out, if the weather be dry will require watering for ten days or a fortnight after, in fact until it takes the soil.

The planter having set out all his trees must not deem his labors completed, they are only commencing.  To arrive thus far is simple and easy, but to patiently watch and tend the trees for ten years after, requires all the enthusiasm already mentioned.  About three months after planting out, the young trees will receive great benefit if a small quantity of liquid fish manure be given them.  In the first six years they ought to be trenched round three times, enlarging the circle each time, the trenches being dug close to the extremities of the roots, which generally correspond to the ends of the branches, and each new trench commencing where the old one terminated.  They must of course greatly increase in size as the circle extends, requiring a proportionate quantity of manure, but the depth ought never to be less than two feet.

The object of trenching is to loosen the soil and permit the roots to spread, otherwise the tree spindles instead of becoming broad and umbrageous.  Manure is beyond all other considerations the most important to the welfare of the estate; it is that which gives quantity and quality of produce, and without it a plantation cannot be carried on.  The want of it must limit the cultivation in the Straits’ Settlements, and will arrest many a planter, who, having got his plantation to look well up to the eighth year with very little manure, thinks he can go on in the same manner.  The nutmeg tree likes well all sorts of manures, but that which is best suited for it seems to be well-rotted stable and cow-yard manure, mixed with vegetable matter, and when the tree is in bearing the outer covering of the nut itself is about one of the very best things to be thrown into the dung-pit.  Dead animals buried not too near the roots, also blood, fish, and oil cakes are beneficial.  Guano is of no use.