IX 
LONG PEPPER 
315 
yield of each vine at 1 seer, valued at 8 annas. It is 
said to flower in August and September, and fruit is 
ripe in January. 
The plant seems to be cultivated exclusively by 
natives in India, and I can And no record of Europeans 
ever having attempted to grow it. The only other 
accounts of its cultivation are those of Dr. Roxburgh in 
the Flora Indica, and Major Bruce in the Agri- 
Horticultural Society of India Transactions, iii. 60, 
who say that the plant is propagated by suckers, and 
requires a rich, high, and dry soil. The suckers are 
transplanted soon after the setting in of the periodical 
rains, at a distance of 5 ft. apart. A little manure is 
applied to the soil, and during the hot weather the 
roots are shaded by covering the ground between the 
plants with straw. No water is applied. The natives 
usually plant radishes, brinjals, or barley between the 
plants as a catch crop. The spikes are gathered in the 
month of January, when it is still green and unripe, as 
it is most pungent before it is fully ripe. When quite 
ripe the spikes are red in colour. The spikes are merely 
dried in the sun, and take on a grey colour. The 
plant produces 250 to 500 lbs. of dry pepper to the acre 
in the first year, 1,000 lbs. in the second, and 1,500 lbs. 
in the third year. After this time it becomes less 
productive, and is then dug up, and the roots and thick 
parts of the stem are dried and sold as a drug, under 
the name of Pippid mula. The field is then replanted 
with a fresh stock of roots or shoots. 
Regions. — Bengal is still the chief source of the 
long pepper of India. The dried fruit fetches 9 rupees 
a maund of 41 lbs. The root, of which the most valued 
form is derived from Mirzapore and Malwar, fetches 50 
rupees per maund from the latter locality, against 10 to 
40 rupees from Bengal. A certain quantity is exported 
from Calcutta to Europe, but the chief long pepper of 
commerce is the Javanese species. 
Bengal long pepper is shorter and more slender than 
Javanese, and also darker in colour. It is less pungent. 
