370 SPICES 



CHAP. 



quite possible that this is due to the bad drying of the 

 local fruit, which has often a bad colour, being rather 

 yellow than red when dry, probably due to damp, for I 

 have seen excellent clean-coloured dried capsicums 

 prepared with artificial heat by a European from the 

 plants ordinarily cultivated here. The natives attribute 

 the inferiority of locally dried capsicums to the want of 

 sufficient sun-heat, and say that they do not like 

 artificially dried ones. 



India. Chilies are grown in India extensively as a 

 field crop, being grown in rotation with pulse seeds, oil 

 seeds, or after potatoes. N. G. Mukerji gives an 

 account of their cultivation in his Handbook of Indian 

 Agriculture. He says that sandy loam and newly 

 formed alluvium on the banks of rivers do well for this 

 crop, but dry rock soils containing plenty of lime 

 produce the best crop. 



The seedlings are raised in nursery beds in a cool 

 and shady spot. The soil is well pulverised, and rotted 

 manure and lime and ashes applied. The seed is sown 

 in May, and when the seedlings are 6 or 7 in. high, 

 they are transplanted after a good shower of rain at a 

 distance of 27 by 18 in. apart. This is done in July 

 and August. 



The land for planting out is prepared very early in 

 the season ; in December or January this is effected with 

 the hoe, or by the local plough and grubber. The 

 ground should be worked over by the grubber once a 

 month till the planting season. The cultivation of 

 field-crops in India is far more common and better 

 understood than anywhere else in the tropics. The 

 whole system is very different from anything in Ceylon 

 and the Straits Settlements. It is done on a much 

 larger scale, and as it has been pursued probably far 

 longer than in any other part of the tropical East, the 

 ground is in a more cultivated condition than else- 

 where. The flat open plains ploughed over continu- 

 ously for unknown generations can be more easily 

 worked, and a larger series of agricultural implements 



