PIPER 



NIGRUM 



Bombay 



Seasons. 



Manure. 



Leaf-mould 

 and Farm-yard 

 Manure. 



Bearing 

 Season. 



Crop. 



Preparation 

 for Market. 



White and 

 Black Peppers. 



Madras 



and 



Mysore. 



Early Account. 



THE PEPPEK PLANT 



which it is intended to climb. When it has taken root it is severed from 

 the parent plant and trained on its living support. Two or three shoots 

 are sometimes layered to one palm. The best months for propagating 

 are June and July. The main vine should divide freely into subordinate 

 branches so that a number of shoots can be trained to ascend. They are 

 secured to the stem by bands stripped from the sheaths of fallen leaves of 

 the betel-palm. Heavy applications of good manure are given annually 

 for three years after planting. Subsequently the pepper participates in 

 the general cultivation given to the betel, and an application of manure 

 is made to both crops every second year. The manure is heaped over the 

 bared roots of the betel-trees and pepper-plants in a circle round the stem. 

 The best manure is made from green leaves and twigs plucked in the 

 monsoon, used as litter in cattle-byres, and thence removed to a manure 

 pit every day or second day, together with the dung and urine of the 

 cattle. This manure is sufficiently decayed by the following March, and is 

 applied in that month or in April. A plantation is in bearing three or 

 four years after it is started, and if the old vines as they get worn out are 

 at once replaced by new layers, the plantation will keep in vigorous growth 

 for a long period. Flowers appear in July and August and the berries 

 are ripe in March. The vines, in full bearing, give in a good season 

 about 1,000 clusters, which should yield about 7 seers of dried pepper 

 (1 Bombay seer = 7 lb.). 



Ordinarily the bunches are plucked when the berries are green 

 or changing colour. The berries are then sorted out, the ripe ones 

 separated, soaked in water for seven or eight days, or heaped till the pulp 

 ferments. They are then rubbed or trampled underfoot till the pulp is 

 rubbed off the " stone " which furnishes the white pepper of commerce. 

 But that article is prepared, to a small extent only, in Kanara. The chief 

 product is black pepper, which is got from unsorted berries. These are 

 heaped for about four days till such as are green get soft and change colour, 

 and the pulp of all is more or less squashed. They are then spread out 

 and dried. The skin and part of the pulp adhere as a dark, wrinkled 

 covering to the stones, and the pepper is black in appearance. White 

 pepper is worth Rs. 10 to 11 per maund, and black Rs. 7 to 8 per maund. 

 [Cf. Dept. Land Eec. and Agri. Bombay Bull, 1900, No. 20, 13-5.] 



Madras and Mysore. In certain respects it might almost be said that 

 we know very little more regarding the pepper industry of South India 

 than was understood in the first and second decades of the 16th century. 

 Varthema (Travels, 1510 (ed. Hakl. Soc.), 1863, 157) will be found to give 

 a vivid picture of the plantations in and around Calicut : " It is like a 

 vine climbing on trees : from each of the branches are produced five to 

 eight clusters of berries, a little longer than a man's finger ; they are like 

 raisins but more regularly arranged, and are as green as unripe grapes ; 

 they gather them in October and November, and lay them in the sun on 

 mats, when they turn black as they are seen among us, without doing 

 anything else to them. And you must know that these people neither 

 prune nor hoe this tree which produces the pepper." So also Barbosa, 

 in the beginning of the 16th century (Coasts E. Africa and Malabar (ed. 

 Hakl. Soc.), 1866, 219), gives a detailed account of the plant, and of the 

 trade in pepper from Calicut shortly after the arrival of the Portuguese 

 in India. The spice had to pay an export duty to the King of Calicut 

 and was shipped via Cambay to Persia, Aden, Mecca, Cairo and Alexandria, 



898 



