PIPER 



NIGRUM 



Cultivation 



Living Shade. 



Irrigation. 

 Top-dressing. 



Yielding 

 Season. 



Annual Boots. 



Price of Stock. 



Cost. 



Yield. 



Trade. 



D.E.P., 



vi., pt. i., 

 260-7. 

 Black 

 Pepper. 



Cultiva- 

 tion. 



THE PEPPER PLANT 



cultivation. The following ^account from the Sagaing district is 

 given by Parlett (Rept. SettL Operat. Sagaing, 1903, 130-1). Small plots 

 planted with betel-vines are found in most Sagaing gardens. At 

 Tada-u, where land is devoted solely to raising betel, a site is chosen 

 usually under tamarind-trees, and occasionally a few plantains or 

 other trees are grown for shade. The gardens are divided into blocks, 

 some 30 feet square, and the plants set in rows about 2 feet apart in each 

 direction, connected by small water-channels. Between every six or 

 eight rows is a pathway (yin-gwe) about 3 feet wide. The vines are always 

 irrigated from wells and in the hot season are watered alternate days : in 

 the early rains at intervals of two, and in the cold weather, of three days. 

 While rains are continuous, irrigation ceases. A top-dressing of leaf- 

 mould every year is said to improve the yield. Leaves may be gathered 

 within a year after planting, but plucking is often deferred to the second 

 year, and the third to fifth years are best. After the sixth year the vines 

 are often cut down. In Sagaing old or weakly vines are cut down from 

 year to year and replaced by new slips, and the same ground is occupied by 

 the vinery for twenty years or more. In Tada-u the garden is worked as 

 long as it is remunerative ; then the vines are cut down and the land 

 fallowed for two years. Each block is usually plucked once a month or 

 once in two months, always before 9 a.m., as plucking in the heat of the 

 day exhausts the vine. The average price of young plants is Us. 15 per 

 1,000 ; of the leaves, Rs. 25 per 100 viss. The average mortgage price 

 works out to Rs. 226 per acre, and the annual rent to Rs. 100 per acre. 

 The ground-rent per acre averages Rs.113 for the life of the vine five 

 years or about Rs. 22 a year. It is estimated that 1,000 vines yield an 

 average annual profit of Rs. 35, i.e. Rs. 350 per acre. [Cf. Upper Burma 

 Gaz., 1900, ii., 344.] 



TRADE IN PAN-LEAF. The habit of chewing this substance is very 

 widespread, especially in the towns and cities, the supplies being often drawn 

 from great distances. The Central Provinces send a large portion of their 

 produce to Calcutta on the one side, and Bombay on the other. Neither 

 in the official returns of trade by rail and river, nor by sea coastwise, is 

 there any mention of pdn-le&i, so that no information exists as to the 

 extent or direction of the internal movements. There are no foreign 

 transactions. 



P. nig-pum, Linn. ; Hunter, As. Res., 1807, ix., 383-90 ; Bot. Mag., 

 1832, 3139 ; The Black and White Pepper ; gulmirch, filfilgird, habush, 

 vellajung, murichung, spot, martz, ddru-garm, miri, kdldmari, choca, mildgu, 

 mirydla tige, menasu, lada, sa yo mai, etc. A climber, usually dioecious, 

 wild in the forests of Travancore and Malabar, and cultivated in the 

 hot, damp localities of Southern India. 



CULTIVATION. Pepper was one of the most important articles of 

 early Indo-European trade, and has been extensively cultivated on the 

 western coast of South India from very early times. Vincent (Periplus, 

 etc., 1800, app., 42) speaks of it as grown in Malabar. It has accordingly 

 been specially cultivated there since at least the 5th century. But a 

 much earlier knowledge is shown by the frequent mention of pepper by 

 the Sanskrit medical writers. It was also known to the Greeks from 

 the time of Theophrastes onwards. Though cultivated from remote times 

 in Sumatra, the Straits, Siam, and the Malay Peninsula generally, Malabar 



896 



