ix LONG PEPPER 315 



yield of each vine at 1 seer, valued at 8 annas. It is 

 said to flower in August and September, and fruit is 

 ripe in January. 



The plant seems to be cultivated exclusively by 

 natives in India, and I can find no record of Europeans 

 ever having attempted to grow it. The only other 

 accounts of its cultivation are those of Dr. Koxburgh in 

 the Flora Indica, and Major Bruce in the Agri- 

 Horticultural Society of India Transactions, iii. 60, 

 who say that the plant is propagated by suckers, and 

 requires a rich, high, and dry soil. The suckers are 

 transplanted soon after the setting in of the periodical 

 rains, at a distance of 5 ft. apart. A little manure is 

 applied to the soil, and during the hot weather the 

 roots are shaded by covering the ground between the 

 plants with straw. No water is applied. The natives 

 usually plant radishes, brinjals, or barley between the 

 plants as a catch crop. The spikes are gathered in the 

 month of January, when it is still green and unripe, as 

 it is most pungent before it is fully ripe. When quite 

 ripe the spikes are red in colour. The spikes are merely 

 dried in the sun, and take on a grey colour. The 

 plant produces 250 to 500 Ibs. of dry pepper to the acre 

 in the first year, 1,000 Ibs. in the second, and 1,500 Ibs. 

 in the third year. After this time> it becomes less 

 productive, and is then dug up, and the roots and thick 

 parts of the stem are dried and sold as a drug, under 

 the name of Pippul mula. The field is then replanted 

 with a fresh stock of roots or shoots. 



Regions. Bengal is still the chief source of the 

 long pepper of India. The dried fruit fetches 9 rupees 

 a maund of 41 Ibs. The root, of which the most valued 

 form is derived from Mirzapore and Malwar, fetches 50 

 rupees per maund from the latter locality, against 10 to 

 40 rupees from Bengal. A certain quantity is exported 

 from Calcutta to Europe, but the chief long pepper of 

 commerce is the Javanese species. 



Bengal long pepper is shorter and more slender than 

 Javanese, and also darker in colour. It is less pungent. 



