JtJNE I, 1889.] 
THT TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
803 
CULTIVATION OF PEPPER AT 1,400 FEET ATTITUDE 
IN CEYLON. 
[By a Practical Ceylon Planter.'] 
AS GROWN AT CRYSTAL HILL — VILLAGE CUTTINGS — MORTALITY IN DRY 
WEATHER — BEWARE WILD FEPPER — DIFFICULTY OF A NURSERY — A CUTTING 
DEFINED — NATIVE STYLE OF PLANTING — ADVANTAGE OF ROOTED CUTTINGS 
— THOSE WITH NO ROOTS KEPT 12 MONTHS IN THE NURSERY— DIFFERENT 
CONDITIONS OF GROWTH NOTHING TO DO WITH SO-CALLED VARIETIES — POOR 
SOIL — VINES ON DECIDUOUS TREES — DEAD PLANTS SHOOTING UP AGAIN — 
ITS SECRET — PLANTS FROM CUTTINGS AND FROM SEED — BRANCH CUTTINGS 
SHORT LIVED — PRUNING NOT SUITABLE TO CEYLON — TRAINING UP THE TREE 
■fr VINES ON FRUIT TREES DAMAGED BY COOLIES — PEPPER AT HALOYA 2000 
FEET ELEVATION — CUTTINGS FROM NEGOMBO — ANOTHER SECRET REVEALED 
— EXPOSURE TO THE MORNING SUN AND SHELTER FROM AFTERNOON — 
PEPPER AT COTTA 10O FEET ELEVATION— BATT1CALOA — TENDENCY OF THE 
PLANT TO GROW TOWARD THE EAST — CHANGE OF SEED NOT NEW VARIETIES 
— DEGENERATION OF NATIVE SPECIES TO IMPKOVE BY A STRANGER — 
MALABAR VARIETY NOT STRONG AS NATIVE — LONG PEPPER. 
Matale East, the district of my residence since 1879, ' always thought to 
be about the best for the cultivation of pepper, seeing bow freely it grew in 
the villages round about; but I could not make a beginning till 1884 
when the management of Crystal Hill estate was handed over to me. Before 
my time pepper had been planted on the place by the proprietor, Mr. A. G. 
K. Borron, and by my time many of the vines were in full bearing. These were 
all under shade trees among the cacao; and encouraged by the progress they 
had made, it was resolved to plant pepper under all other trees, especially 
arecanuts with which we had about 30 acres plained 10x10 feet and 6 to 8 
years old. The S.-W. monsoon was then just setting in and a start had to 
be made at once. This gave us no time to consider about raising plants in 
a nursery; in fact, we attached no importance to such consideralions as cuttings 
from old vines were supposed to be all that was required and these could 
have been got in any quantity from the immediate neighborhood. Accordingly, 
as was the custom in the country (a practice evidently introduced by some 
planters) coolies were sent to purchase cuttings. These were usually 18 inches 
in length and cost from R5 to Rid per 1,000; and anything that came 
to hand in the shape of a pepper cutting was readily dibbled into the ground. 
About 20,000 plants were put out in this manner and the weather being 
all that could be desired, these were all of course expected to grow up 
satisfactorily. About a month elapsed and we were still being favoured with 
occasional showers ; but what was my disappointment to find, after all that 
trouble and expense, about 50 % of my plants completely destroyed — some 
rotted and some dried — and even out of those that were still keeping fresh 
only a few growing. A week or so after this, the weather had changed to a 
series of dry hot days, and fancy the magnitude of my horror when I beheld 
day after day that even those that were growing succumb to what we thought 
to be the effect of the rays of the sun. As the only remedy to save even 
those that were still remaining, resort was at once had to shading the plants 
with leaves. To a certain extent this proved to be successful. But notwithstanding 
all thai shade and constant looking after, I made out about 80 % of my plants 
to have failed before the next rainy season bad set in. 
It is not necessary to dwell on the various theories that had beeen advanced to 
account for the failures of our first attempt as the facts connected with our second 
attempt to supply those failures will show what they were. 
Long before the N.-E. monsoon set in arrangements were made to get cuttings 
and have them kept in a nursery so as to be in readiness for planting out with 
the first rains. Nursery beds were prepared where water was easily accessible 
and cuttings obtained from the villages as before. But in obtaining these cut- 
tings this time I had to be more cautious, for I found only when it was too 
late that a good many of the plants of my first planting were of a kind what we 
call wild pepper which use to grow in the jungles. The best method of de- 
tecting these whenever an attempt is made to palm them off as genuine, is to 
compare the leaves of both species : the leaf of the wild one is somewhat pubes 
cent, while the other is glossy. By this means the best cuttings were collected, 
but a ditficulty arose when they were to be put in the nursery : Which is the 
best way to place the cuttings in the bed? No one could say exactly, but still 
the differences of opinions on the subject were many. The inexhaustible Tropical 
Agriculturist which I consulted first could not help me at all. My native neigh- 
bours could tell me only how they planted a vine long ago, but did not know 
how to raise a nursery as they never heard of one. At last commonsense had 
to be relied upon, and one of our theories was (1) that, as they grew from 
every joint, the longer cuttings should be bent into a bow and boih ends buried 
in the ground at least 6 inches deep; another (2) was to bury the middle of 
the cutting and have both ei.ds jutting out a few inches above the ground; 
(3) cuttings which were shorter than 12 inches were put about three inches 
apart in the ordinary way six inches deep. All the beds were shaded with 
branches of trees except one bed which was sown with seeds, and were watered 
as was found to be necessary. But, alas, what was the result ? When the time 
came for planting them out, hardly one-half of the cuttings were alive! Theory 
No. I was a complete failure, No. 2 partly so, but No. 3 so far a success, at 
least not so disappointing. On the whole, as the saying is, after many failures 
comes success, I was not discouraged by the failure of this experiment, for 
herein I conceived the idea how to raise a pepper nursery with any description 
of cuttings successfully. Here I must remark that by whomsoever the system had 
peen introduced, a great blunder had been committed in regard to the manner 
bepper cuttings are bought and sold now-a-days. As the branch cuttings when 
grown do not prove to be good climbers but rather inclined to grow into a bush 
for some time and then die off, the cuttings from the root, or shoots growing out 
from the parent vine and creep on the ground are always preferred for raising 
plants. These shoots are usually several yards in length with roots hanging 
down from almost every joint. The native style of planting was to pull out the 
whole of one of these shoots and bury it round a tree in two or three coils ; 
they must therefore count each shoot as a plant. But according to the rule 
in vogue at present, a shoot will be cut into a dozen lengths and sold as a dozen 
plants. It does not concern us as to whether it is the practice in India or in the 
Straits Settlements : we. should adhere lo the rule which was in force here from 
time immemorial. 
But to return to my cultivation. As might be expected we planted out all 
the surviving plants and made up the difference for supplying our failures by 
buying fresh lots of cuttings from the villages, but this time I insisted on 
getting and planting only the cuttings that bad plenty ol roots in them, as I 
found these to grow better than those without roots. The cuttings that came 
without roots, I cut into pieces of 9 inches in length so as to have three or 
more joints in each piece, and put ihem into a nursery over which I had a 
thatched roof, 6 feet high, so as to prevent the rays of the sun falling on its 
beds, but which at the same time gave it plenty of airy room and plenty of 
light. I felt that these two conditions were absolutely necessary for raising pep- 
per plants in a nursery either from seed or cuttings. These plants I expected 
to leave in the nursery for at least 6 months before the next planting season. 
I am now of opinion that to leave them in the nursery for a whole year, 6 
months under shade and 6 months exposed to the sun by removing the roof, 
would be so much the better for them as the sequel will show. The supplying 
of my first season's failures having been done during the first week of the re- 
gular N.-E. rains, the plants I put out from the nursery, as well as the rooted 
cuttings I so carefully selected and planted, had plenty uf time to grow. The 
rains that year continued from October to January, and so far as my observa- 
tion went, I found not a single failure for four months among any of my 
second season's planting. The dry season began in February and the heat was 
intense in March, and although I took the precaution to h'a-vc all my plants 
shaded in good time, the drought at an elevation of 1,400 feet above the mean 
sea level was too much for even the growing plants lo withstand, and consequently 
a large percentage died out again. It was very strange to observe the different 
conditions in which the plants that survived Ihe drought had been placed; and 
when I compare them with the condilions of those that had succumbed were 
I placed, my bewilderment became si ill greater. If one were to suppose that 
sufficient shade would keep a pepper plant alive in any dry weather, here then 
is an instance to prove the contrary, for I could have counted hundreds of 
them under trees with abundance of foliage which afforded them the 
best natuial shelter, all dead, while in another more open situation 
hundreds might be seen to be growing satisfactorily. Here again is 
an open paich where the best plants had been put out, but now hardly one 
to be seen; while a few yards farther is a clump of shady trees under whose 
sombre foliage they are growing like common ferns. This strange anomaly 
as might be expected led me to the conclusion that there were different varieties 
of pepper growing in the island, and that of these some grew under shade 
and some exposed. If this was the case, surely cuttings can be chosen 
and planted according to the suitability of each locality. But the theory does 
not reconcile with the results of my nursery experiments where under a given 
condition all the plants thrive, till they are removed and planted out. If 
any of these plants had been of the variety that did not grow under shade 
I there would have been a perceptible number of failures. But such was not 
the case, and so the failures outside could not be attributed to such a cause. 
Being then but a beginner as I was, my next impression was that the soil 
J which had been an abandoned field of coffee was old and exhausted, and 
j though some o'd vines growing thereon were growing luxuriantly and bear 
good crops, they bad been planted when the soil was still fertile and new, 
but now the plants would not grow as the soil had lost its fertility. But I 
do not believe in this theory with the experience I have gained up to the present 
day, as I have reason to believe that pepper could be cultivated in any poor 
soil provided only the rules necessary to encourage its propensities be strictly 
observed; that is to say, we must allow the plant to grow as it will, when it 
will grow as we want. 
Since beginning the cultivation I had two seasons for planting, both of 
which were taken advantage of as already stated. The survivors of the first 
season were now 12 months old, while those of the second were 6 months. 
The scarcity ot rain still continued and by about the middle of April the 
drought had done its worst. What with soil, climate and elevation, here was 
the saddest picture to behold! So much money and labour absorbed and 
not a single plant of either the first or ihe second season to be seen alive ! All 
hopes blasted and gone ! Even the older vines that looked so lovely with their 
rich foliage and a premising crop were now quite bare and looked as if they 
were about to go off. 'I his afforded me an opportunity 10 observe the in- 
fluence which the trees on which the vines grew exercised over the vines. 
Those that grew on any deciduous trees as ihe Inga Saman, dadap or era- 
bodda, kapok, &c. were the worse for it; svbile those which grew on jak, 
arecanut, kekuna, and such other trees which were not deciduous, were still 
holding on. Even these latter would doubtless have passed off like their 
companions of the vegetable world, but for the timely rains of the month of 
May and once more the drooping hearts of the poor Matale planters were cheered? 
June followed with more rain, and the ravages of the drought were to 
a considerable extent repaired. And it wa> then that 1 found out the advan- 
tage of having a plethora of roots in the pepper cutting or plants, before it 
is planted out and allowed to take care of itself ; for whtrever this had been the 
case I found the plant which was given up for dead during the droughl, 
immediately after the rains spring up in beautiful suckers and those that 
sprang up in this manner were not a few. but thousands. Here then is one 
of the secrets of the pepper plant — if cuttings without roots are planted out, they 
die immediately those with a little root hold on for sonic time, and rot in 
the ground, but those with more root grow during the rains, and though a 
