THE TECHNOLOGIST. [July 1, 1865. 



552 PEPPER. 



the plants renders it necessary to provide some support for them to trail 

 upon. Each individual plant is supplied with some kind of prop, but 

 in many plantations these supports are cuttings of some spiny or thorny 

 tree, which, striking in the ground and throwing out its leaves above, 

 furnishes at once both a support and shelter for the young pepper plant. 

 If grown on a rich soil the plants will bear fruit in a small proportion 

 even in the first year, increasing their produce annually till the end of 

 the fifth year, when they yield about eight or ten pounds per plant, and 

 this is about the average produce up to fifteen or twenty years, after 

 which the plants begin to decline, seldom or ever surviving beyond the 

 thirtieth year. A pepper plantation has a peculiar yet picturesque 

 appearance, the regular intervals between the plants and the plants 

 themselves carefully trained against their props, gives to it an air of 

 remarkable uniformity seldom seen in the cultivation of other crops. 

 The plants, which, on account ol their climbing habits are technically 

 called pepper " vines," are allowed to run up their supports to a height 

 of three or four feet ; the tops are then bent down to the ground, and 

 the young shoots which spring from these are tended with great care 

 and neatly trained upwards. The plantations in Sumatra are said to be 

 models of neatness and cleanliness, all weeds and refuse being carefully 

 removed. The fruits when first formed are green, changing to red, and 

 finally to black. When they make their first change from green to red, 

 they are considered fit for gathering, for if left longer on the plants 

 they are apt to drop off, besides losing a portion of their pungency. 

 After gathering, the berries are spread on mats and exposed to the sun 

 to dry ; they are then rubbed between the hands to remove the short 

 stalks. This constitutes black pepper, but both black and white pepper 

 are the produee of the same plant, with this difference that the white 

 is the largest picked berries, gathered at the fullest state of maturity, 

 and denuded of its black outer "husk by soaking in water. White 

 pepper, as we all know, fetches a higher price in the market than 

 black, not on account of its greater pungencj T , for, as we have seen, it 

 has less, losing, as it does, much of that most important principle in 

 the husk of which it is deprived, and also in the process of steeping 

 and bleaching. A good story is told in Mr. Cameron's new book upon 

 ' Our Malayan Possessions,' illustrating the ignorance of the directors 

 of companies of the products or basis of the company's operations. 

 The story runs somewhat in the following manner : — The directors of a 

 Bencoolen pepper plantation, alert, as they should be to the interests 

 ■of the shareholders, finding that -white peppier, which commanded a 

 higher price than black, had as ready a sale and was therefore more 

 profitable, immediately sent orders to the manager of their plantation 

 for greater care to be bestowed upon the plants yielding white pepper 

 than those yielding black. This must have been highly amusing to 

 the. growers themselves. 



The black pepper vine is indigenous to the forests of Malabar and 



