250 
may be moved to the field when nine inches high. They are there 
f 
end of two years, when the bushes have attained their full growth. 
They continue in their prime, and admit of being cut twice a year, 
during a period of 20 or 30 years, provided care be taken to keep the 
ground clean and the roots free from weeds. Their tops must be cut, 
so as to prevent them from growing to a greater height than five or 
six feet. 
“From good ground and a garden well kept, 10 piculs (of 1331 lbs. 
each) of dry Gambier are usually obtained on every orlong twice a year, 
months. In this case the young leaves yield a whiter drug than 
e old.” 
The following more recent Mou is taken from the Tropical Agri- 
culturist for €— 1885, p. 2 
“When a Chinaman wants to open a garden, the forest is felled and 
burned off as rom coffee, the piece did for pepper is dug up and 
prepared most carefully, pepper cuttings planted about he feet apart, 
and a jungle post about 10 feet high sunk in the beside each 
ned. The 
forest eight chains wide, in which he has the right of cutting any 
the garden is any distance from a town. a little more care was given 
to the Gambier, there can be no doubt that, not only would the returns 
be greater, but the garden would last much longer; the Gambier being 
generally worn out long before the pepper begins to fall.” 
The following particulars are taken from de. Straits Times (See 
Pharmaceutical Journal, April, 1888, p. 863.) :— 
*'The main points in Gambier planting which are so attractive to 
Chinamen, are the great rapidity with which they can get a crop out 
of the dir En the small original outlay which is required. . 
eaf of the young Gambier plant is thick and fleshy, and 
yields a a large quii x extract; but as the shrub ages the leaves 
become thinner, and m brous in texture, and lose their character- 
istic fles amid n a Title over 10 years a plantation is almost 
valueless, and as a general rule, is abandoned within 15 years. This 
result is certainly due to the — treatment to which the shrub is 
subjected . The shrubs are cut down with no 
Maris hand ; leaves, shoots, ; and twigs, are all lopped off by the 
Chinaman’s knife, and the plant is well nigh reduced to the condition 
of a mopstick, and left with barely suffici sient leafage to enable it to carry 
on its existence. P o attempt is made to manure the plantation. The 
