334 SPICES 



CHAP. 



and die. Then the soil has to be renovated by felling 

 one or two large trees across each small plot." 



Garden Cultivation is recommended in places where 

 the forests have been so effectually destroyed that the 

 method of cultivation described above as wild cultiva- 

 tion cannot be adopted. Cardamoms can be grown as 

 a crop in shaded gardens and orchards, and this system 

 is in use in Kanara. Here it thrives under the same con- 

 ditions of soil, etc., as do the betel palms and pepper 

 grown in that region, but by preference in cool, very 

 shady gardens with soil kept continually moist. The 

 essential conditions are a soil of clayey-loamy con- 

 sistence kept by favourable position moist, but not wet, 

 at all seasons, and that the garden should by its 

 natural position be shaded by trees and protected from 

 strong winds. 1 It appears that the plant is never culti- 

 vated alone in the North Kanara hill gardens, but in 

 mixed gardens of betel-nuts, pepper-vines, and bananas. 

 In a fully stocked betel-nut garden there can be grown 

 300 to 400 plants per acre. 



Propagation. Cardamoms are cultivated both by 

 root cuttings and by seed. It is said that it is usual in 

 Kanara to use cuttings in old gardens, seedlings in new 

 ones. In India, on the whole, it seems more usual to 

 raise the plants from seeds, in Ceylon from cuttings. 



Rhizome - Cuttings. The rhizome-cuttings called 

 " bulbs " in Ceylon are usually purchased, says Owen, 

 from natives at prices varying from 10 to 25 rupees per 

 thousand. The natives are very careless about taking 

 them up, and many of the bulbs are mutilated and should 

 be rejected. When taking them from an estate it pays 

 well to exercise some amount of care in cutting or 

 breaking the bulbs off. A stool is selected which is not 

 fruiting, and a hole is dug a few inches from it about 1 ft. 

 deep ; the earth is then cleared away by hand from 

 underneath as much of the plant as is required, and this 

 part of the rhizome is bent over till it breaks off natur- 

 ally. In many cases the use of a knife is not required, but 



1 Mollison, Agric. Ledger, 1900, 31, 107. 



