646 ZINGIBERACE^. 



it to the main depot at Alapalli or Aleppi, a port] in Travancore, where 

 his commercial agent resides. The rajah is tenacious of his rights, and 

 inserts a clause in the leases he grants to European coffee-planters, of 

 whom a great many have settled in his territory, requiring that carda- 

 moms shall not be grown. 



The cardamoms at Aleppi are sold by auction, and bought chieily 

 by Moplah merchants for transport to different parts of India, and also, 

 through third parties, to England. All the lower qualities are consumed 

 in India, and the finer alone shipped to Europe. 



In the forests belonging to the British Government cardamoms are 

 mostly reckoned among the miscellaneous items of produce ; but in 

 Coorg, the cardamom forests are now let at a rental of £3,000 per 

 annum under a lease which will expire in 1878.^ 



Dr. Cleghorn, late Conservator of Forests in the Madras Presidency, 

 observes in a letter to one of us, that the rapid extension of coffee 

 culture along the slopes of the Malabar mountains has tended to lessen 

 the production of cardamoms, and has encroached considerably upon 

 the area of their indigenous growth. A recent writer ^ has shown from 

 his own experience that the cultivation of the cardomom is a branch of 

 industry worth the attention of Europeans, and has given many valuable 

 details for insuring successful results. 



Description — The fruit of the Malabar cardamom as found in 

 commerce is an ovoid or oblong, three-sided, three-valved capsule, 

 containing numerous seeds arranged in three cells. It is rounded at 

 the base, and often retains a small stalk ; towards the apex it is more 

 or less contracted, and terminates in a short beak. The longitudinally- 

 striated, inodorous, tasteless pericarp is of a pale greyish -yellow, or buff, 

 or brown when fully ripe, of a thin papery consistence, splitting length- 

 wise into three valves. From the middle of the inner side of each valve 

 a thin partition projects towards the axis, thereby producing three cells, 

 each of which encloses 5 to 7 dark brown, aromatic seeds, arranged in 

 two rows and attached in the central angle. 



The seeds, which are about two lines long, are irregularly angular, 

 transversely rugose, and have a depressed hilum and a deeply channelled 

 raphe. Each seed is enclosed in a thin colourless aril. 



Cardamoms vary in size, shape, colour and flavour : those which are 

 shortly ovoid or nearly globular, and yV to -^o of an inch in length, are 

 termed in trade language shorts; while those of a more elongated form, 

 pointed at each end, and yV f'O -ru of an inch long, are called short- 

 longs. They are further distinguished by the names of localities, as 

 Malabar (or Mangalore), Aleppi, and Madras. The Malabar Car- 

 darnoras, which are the most esteemed, are of full colour, and occur 

 of both forms, namely shorts and short-longs; they are brought to 

 Europe via Bombay. Those terms Alepx)i are generally shorts, pkuup, 

 beaked and of a peculiar greenish tint ; they are imported from Calicut, 

 and sometimes from Aleppi. The Madras are chiefly of elongated form 

 {short-longs) and of a more pallid hue; they are shipped at Madras and 

 Pondicherry. 



Cardamoms are esteemed in proportion to their plumpness and 

 heaviness, and the sound and mature condition of the seeds they 



' Report quoted at p. 645. note 1. - Elliot, op. rit., chap. 12. 



