188 PIPER AC EM 



nurse -trees, and li^ttly tied with strijos of a dried sedge 

 (path)^ so elastic that, without untying it, the pressure of 

 the gro%^'ing' vine keeps it loose. When the vine has grown 

 to the proper height, it is turned back and trained down 

 until it reaches the ground, where it is layered in the earth 

 and again turned up. This is repeated until the tree-stem i^ 

 fully clothed with vines, when the whole is firmly tied wi-th the 

 dried reeds of the lavala^ grass^. After this the management of 

 the plantation closely resembles the cultivation of the grape vine 

 in Southern Europe. Leaf -picking may be begim eighteen 

 months after planting, but in the best gardens it is put ofi till 

 the end of the second year. The leaves may be gathered green 

 amd ripened artificially, or they may be left to ripen on the 

 vine, though this reduces their value. Theleaf-picker uses both 

 hands, the thumbs sheathed in sharp-edged thimble-like plafeg^r 

 which nip the leaves clean off without wren-ching the plant- 

 The vine- grower is either himself a leaf-dealer, or he sells his 

 crop in bulk to a leaf-dealer. Their table of measures is: 40O 

 leaves make a l^avU\ 44 Tzavlh at 'kuricm\ and four hurtam or 

 70,400 leaves an ojhe. In retail the leaves are sold at from 

 I — 2 annas the hundred. {Khandesh Gazetteer, p. 174.) 



Description. — The leaves are about five inches long, 

 broadly ovate, acuminate, obliq^uely cordate at the base, 5 to 7 

 nerved^ coriaceous,, and glossy on the upper surface ; they have 

 a burning,, aromatic and bitter taste. 



Chemical compodtian. — 1>. S. Kemp of Bombay (1885), by 

 di-stilling the fresh leaves with water, obtained two pale yellow 

 essential oils, one heavy and the other light, both having the 

 peculiar odour of the leaf, but the light oil being more aromatic?- 

 These oils oxidised rapidly,, losing their characteristic ethereal 

 odour. The heavy oil was freely soluble in alcohel and ether, 

 sparingly so in chloreform. It had a specific gravity of 1'04(> 

 at 84^ F., and was slightly laevogyre, (a) j=— '54 for a eolumB 

 100 m m, long. Prof. J. F. Eijkman's results with oil of betle, 



* Scirpus suhulalus, Vahl., and Ct/perus perienuis, Rasb., are both kno^vn 

 by thiii uame. 



