VIII 
PEPPERS 
269 
Free Press (May 1888) recommended the burning of 
bulky manures to prevent them attracting termites 
and other injurious insects, or mixing them with soil. 
He mentions that he has seen castor cake applied to 
the vines, both to the surface and below the soil, and 
that in both cases the result was the death of the vine. 
There does not seem to be any record of the use of 
chemical manures or guano, etc., for pepper. 
C. P. K. Nair in the Tropical Agriculturist, June 
1906, p. 562, points out that heavy manuring may 
damage the support tree, which is serious, as he says 
that vines transferred to fresh standards do not last 
more than three years and their yield is affected. The 
destruction of the support is certainly serious, for apart 
from the difficulty of transferring the vine without 
injury, the new tree will take some time to grow before 
it can support the mass of pepper vine. The Chinese 
do, however, frequently find a pepper stake fallen and 
replace it successfully, and in the case of the death 
of a tree-support, a stake could be used to replace it. 
But the danger to the support by over -manuring is 
one which should not be overlooked. 
PESTS AND DISEASES 
The pepper is liable to a variety of diseases, both 
animal and vegetable, as almost every cultivated 
plant is. 
Insect Pests. — Many years ago I found in the stems 
of pepper, or more accurately the shoots, a burrowing 
beetle larva, apparently one of the Rhyncliophora. It 
was a very small species, boring vertically up the shoot, 
which blackened and fell off. I failed to rear the insect. 
In a case of an attack like this, the shoots showing 
signs of withering should be at once cut off and burned. 
I have not met with it since. 
The roots of the pepper are, in Sarawak at least, 
subject to the attacks of large larvae of some Lamellicorn 
beetle, perhaps those of Oryctes rhinoceros. They are 
