VIII 



PEPPERS 269 



Free Press (May 1888) recommended the burning of 

 bulky manures to prevent them attracting termites 

 and other injurious insects, or mixing them with soil. 

 He mentions that he has seen castor cake applied to 

 the vines, both to the surface and below the soil, and 

 that in both cases the result was the death of the vine. 

 There does not seem to be any record of the use of 

 chemical manures or guano, etc., for pepper. 



C. P. K. Nair in the Tropical Agriculturist, June 

 1906, p. 562, points out that heavy manuring may 

 damage the support tree, which is serious, as he says 

 that vines transferred to fresh standards do not last 

 more than three years and their yield is affected. The 

 destruction of the support is certainly serious, for apart 

 from the difficulty of transferring the vine without 

 injury, the new tree will take some time to grow before 

 it can support the mass of pepper vine. The Chinese 

 do, however, frequently find a pepper stake fallen and 

 replace it successfully, and in the case of the death 

 of a tree-support, a stake could be used to replace it. 

 But the danger to the support by over -manuring is 

 one which should not be overlooked. 



PESTS AND DISEASES 



The pepper is liable to a variety of diseases, both 

 animal and vegetable, as almost every cultivated 

 plant is. 



Insect Pests. Many years ago I found in the stems 

 of pepper, or more accurately the shoots, a burrowing 

 beetle larva, apparently one of the Khynchophora. It 

 was a very small species, boring vertically up the shoot, 

 which blackened and fell off. I failed to rear the insect. 

 In a case of an attack like this, the shoots showing 

 signs of withering should be at once cut off and burned. 

 I have not met with it since. 



The roots of the pepper are, in Sarawak at least, 

 subject to the attacks of large larvae of some Lamellicorn 

 beetle, perhaps those of Oryctes rhinoceros. They are 



