300 
SPICES 
CHAP. 
1884 . . 7,129 piculs. 1886 . . 17,006 piculs. 
1885 . . 11,924 „ 1887 . . 39,482 „ 
1888 . . . 17,267 piculs. 
Cambodia. — The cultivation of pepper in Cambodia 
forms the subject of an extensive paper by M. A. 
Leclerc in the Revue des cultures coloniales, 1900, 
pp. 87 and 116, and another by M. Le Kay, Bulletin 
economique de V Indo-Chine, 1907, p. 361. 
The first record of pepper-planting in this country 
is found in the Voyage lointain au Cambodge by a 
Dutchman, Wusthof, in 1644, who mentions pepper as 
furnished by the province of Thbaung Khmoun on the 
Chileang Kiver. The cultivation seems to have discon- 
tinued later, and to have been re-started about 1840 in 
the Kampot province, and about twenty -five years later 
in Peam and fifteen years later in Treang. M. Leclerc 
mentions the only pepper producing districts as Peam, 
Kampot, Treang, and Banteay-mear. These districts are 
arranged thus in order of importance of the cultivation. 
In 1884 the amount of pepper exported from Kampot 
and Peam was 5,000 piculs, but the unsettled state of the 
country in 1885 and 1886 seriously injured the 
cultivations. Young plantations were abandoned and 
many plants in older plantations were destroyed by the 
bandits, or died from neglect, and the planters ceased 
to open up fresh ground or plant. The production fell 
to 2,000 piculs in Peam and to 1,800 in the Kampot 
province. When the country was at peace the 
cultivators set to work again, and in 1889 the 
production had risen to its former amount, the four 
provinces producing 6,000 piculs. 
In 1902 the cultivation rapidly increased owing to 
the exhaustion of the soil in Hatien (Cochin-China) 
and the superiority of the Cambodian soil, which 
required no manuring, and which allowed of a first crop 
in the fourth or even the third year ; to the higher 
taxation of Asiatic aliens in Cochin-China than in 
Cambodia, and to the objection of the Chinese to 
certain anthropometrical examinations which entailed 
