A little of the history of mace and nutmegs: It has generally been believed that neither the nutmeg or mace were known to the ancients. Nutmegs and mace were imported from India at an early date by the Arabians, and thus passed into western countries. Masudi, who appears to have visited England in 916–920 A. D., pointed out that the nutmeg, like cloves, arcca nut and sandalwood, was a product of the eastern isles of the Indian archipelago. The Arabian geographer, Edrisi, who wrote in the middle of the 12th century, mentions both nutmeg and mace as articles of import into Aden. They are also among the articles on which duty was levied at Acre in 1180. About a century later another Arabian author, Kozwim, expressly named the Moluccas as the native country of the spices under notice. One of the earliest references to them in Europe occurs in a poem about 1195, by Petrus D’Ebulo, describing the entry into Rome of the Emperor Henry VI, previous to his coronation in 1191. By the end of the 12th century both nutmeg and mace were found in northern Europe, even in Denmark, as may be inferred from the allusions to them in the writings of Harpestring. In England, mace, though well known, was a very costly article, its value between 1284 and 1377 being about 4s 7d per lb., while the average price of a sheep during the same period was about 1s 5d, and of a cow 9s 5d. It was also dear in France, for in the will of Jeanne d’Evreux, queen of France, in 1372, 6 ozs. of mace were appraised at the rate of 8s 3d per lb. In the middle of the 18th century, the Dutch, with the object of monopolizing the trade in nutmegs, destroyed all the trees in all the Moluccas islands, excepting Banda. Nature did not, however, sympathize with such meanness. The nutmeg pigeon, found in all the Indian islands, did for the world what the Dutch had determined should not be done--carried the nuts, which are their food, into all the surrounding countries, and trees grew again and the world had the benefit. In order to keep up the price, the surplus stock was burned up each year by certain unscrupulous men, as is proposed to do at the present day with the surplus stock of Brazilian coffee. In 1760, they burned at Amsterdam three such immense piles of nutmegs and cloves that one writer says: “Each of which was as big as a church.” This account of nutmeg would not be complete without “Connecticut Nutmegs.” Some 90 years ago Frederick Accum startled England with his book “Adulteration of Food and Culinary Poison,” and a sort of pure food hysteria passed thru the country similar to that caused by the boric acid investigation here. But he was eclipsed by a person who declared that the makers of wooden shoe-pegs in Connecticut were making oats and nutmegs from the discarded wood of sawmills. He asserted they were not only made, but used as food thruout the country. Thus was Connecticut christened the Nutmeg State, a name which it has retained even unto this day. PEPPER