8o3 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[April 2, 1883. 



This work neoflnot, be clone till the clearing is planted. 



The Chinese commence niannrinj; (with burnt earth 

 chiefly) directly the cuttingsare planted, andmanure twice 

 a year when they can aftord it; once always. Burnt earth, 

 cattle manure, fish and I think limes and punnc would 

 be the best. Iri ponie places, I believe in Sumatra, 

 they let the vine run up to 5 feet, then take it off 

 the post, and bury it in the eround, leaving the arch 

 out of the ground, from which two or three euckera 

 grow, and are trained up the post. 



The Chinese in Singapore and .Johoi'o, who are said 

 to be the best cultivators of pepper, do not do this, 

 but plant their cuttings as I have described. They al- 

 ways use ru/tiiiijf:, and only the inds or tops of 

 branches, which they put in a shaded nursery to root 

 before planting out. I myself have found ijlants 

 much more certain than cuttings and hardier, but I 

 was not able to obtain cuttings of the ends of br.inches 

 only. The vines commence to bear at 2^ years old. I 

 saw a garden of this age in Singapore. The vines were 

 about feet up the post but bushy at the bottom, 



and had a maiden crop on them. I can't estimate 

 how much an acre, but I think it was about 600 lb. 

 per acre. 



From a good old avernge vine— said to bo .SO years 

 olJ — I saw .SO lb. of green pepper taken and weighed. 

 I saw several gardens th.at I l)elievp arcraged. as much 

 as this vine. 



As pepper dries down to one fifth "f its green 

 weit'ht, this would be 6 lb. of marketable pepper, or 

 at 889 vine^i per acre .5,.S34 lb. per ar-re for the autumn 

 crop, and the Chinese said they got as much more for 

 the spring crop. I did not see any spring crop, so cannot 

 vouch for the truth of this total: say 10,000 lb. per acre 

 l^er .annum. I don't believe this. 



The Chinese never, as far as I saw, plant more 

 than from 10 to 15 acres of pepper in one garden along 

 a carefully selected basin, and they cultivate each 

 vine very highly, so that tliere are no bud vines in the 

 whole acreage, until the garden is old and worn out. 



A CTood average crop of pepper I h:ive been toM on 

 reliable authority is about 28 piculs an acre or say 

 3:> cwt., or rather ovei' 41b. of prepared pepper per vine. 

 The price of pepper in Singapore now .§15 per picul, 

 is very high, and I was told th.it .f 10 was a safe 

 price to calculate on. This would give 28 piculs at 

 $10 = .S280, or say about RfiOO per acre as the value 

 of the crop, and putting down the cultivation at 

 the cxtremest limit of HCOO jier a' re per annum, 

 leaves a profit of R4t'0 per acre. This sounds almost 

 too good to be true, but I feel certain these profits 



are made out of the pepper gardens iu Singapore 

 and .fohore, and there is no doubt that the Chinese 

 have made very large fortunes from this cultivation. 

 The preparation is very simple. The Chinese use a very 

 rough drying drier someihiug like the ordinary Sinlialese 

 lime-kilns with warachies on the top and mattincr on 

 which the pepper is spread to dry with fire under- 

 reath. White pepper is made from the best and 

 upest berries. It is placed in heaps for several days 

 to ferment and then trampled out and washed 

 and dried very much iu the same way as coffee. 

 Pepper is sent to England in bags of 142 lb. each. 

 It is taken at 16 cwt. to the ton for black pepper, 

 and 18 cwt for white. By using winnowing and sizing 

 machines, I am sure we would very much improve 

 on the samples of Singapore black pepper, especially 

 by picking out the grey peppercorns, for which 

 work labour is too dear in Singapore. Onf>. penyiy per 

 lb. covers shipping, insurance, loss on weight (»luch 

 is from 6 to 10 jier cent), brokerage and freight. 

 Pepper damages tea, and some ships refuse it. The 

 lowest price it has ever been down to is $6 per 

 picul many ye.ars ago. For the last five years it has 

 averaged from §10 to S15 per picul. 



A free rich soil is the best, and a continually wet 

 climate. A long drought is said to cause the berries to 

 fall off the branch before they are ripe. I could hear 

 of no disease or blight that affected the vines, and cert- 

 ainly saw none on any of the many gardens I visited. 

 The crop is picked with light step-ladders, the branches 

 are picked whole, as soon as some of the berries 

 begin to turn red and yellow. I don't think it possible 

 to get all the berries on a branch ripe before 

 it is picked : some would fall off before all were 

 ripe. I consider good chena land, if not steep .nnd 

 washed, as better for pepper than virgin forest, imlesa 

 all the logs and roots of the latter are cleared away, 

 for it IS extremely difficult to work iip pepper as it 

 should be done with the logs and roots on the ground. 

 The vines that grow over the old xtumps of large trees 

 are always the finest, as they seem to derive nourish- 

 ment from the rotting timber. 



Pepper : — Cost op Cultivation. 



1st year. 



Superintendence .. 



Felling,* chena 



Nurseries... 



Weeding 8 months... 



Lining 



Hohng 



Filling in... 



Draining and roads 



Planting and shading pepper 



Planting cotton plants 



Tools, building contingencies, etc. 



2nd year. 



Superintendence ... 



Nurseries .. 



Weeding ... 



Roads, drains 



Terracing... 



Manuring 



Pruning and training vines... 



Supplying 



Buildings, contingencies, etc. 



Per acre. 



.. RIOOO 

 8'00 



lO'OO 

 800 

 1-50 

 900 

 9 00 



12 00 

 6 00 

 200 



20 CO 



R95oO 



R1200 

 2-00 

 12-00 

 1-00 

 8-00 

 .500 

 3 '00 

 100 

 1000 



R54 00 



* The cost of item will depend on wliether cuttings can 

 be bought close at baud, or plants are raised from seed. 



