NUT-BUTTER

or Nut-margarin, a‘tificial butter made by churning refined and neutralized nut oils—chiefly, in this country, coconut oil, alone or with peanut oil—and cultured milk. It is a good imitation of butter—both in flavor and (when colored) in appearance, but for children’s consumption is subject to the criticism of its lower vitamin content and of its benzoate of soda addition. See also OnzomMarGaRIN and the article on Foop Vauuvts. NUTMEG (sce the color-page facing 348), the kernel of the fruit of a tropical tree; native to the Hast Indies. The typical fruit is in shape between roundish and pear style, two inches or Je in its greatest diameter, and reddish-yellowish of skin. On niaturity, it splits in two, exposing a pink or red aril more or le completely covering the hard, brown shell which encloses the kernel. This aril is the other popular spice known as Mace (which see). In the Hast Indies the whole fruit is often preserved entire in sirup. The tree begins bearing at the age of about eight years, and continues to yield for half a century or more. In its wild state it may reach seventy feet in height. In cultivation, its growth is generally restricted to twenty-five feet or thereabouts --thix increasing its produetivity and making harvesting easier. It carries ripe fruit at all seasons, but there are three prineipal harvest periods—July, when the fruit Nee,| account of the dryne of hee Sy D = a - the season.