X 
CARDAMOMS 
327 
groweth in Calicut and Cananor” (places on the coast 
of Malabar). The greater cardamom he refers to is 
doubtless the Nepal cardamom. 
Garcia da Orta writes of the two true cardamoms, 
and says that the long cardamom comes from Ceylon. 
The spice, as imported, was for very many years 
obtained from wild plants, both in Malabar and Ceylon. 
The custom was to fell the trees and cut down the 
brushwood, only a few big trees being left as shade, and 
the seedlings of the cardamoms were left to spring up. 
When ripe the fruit was gathered. The ground was 
cleared of brushwood every year till the plants were 
exhausted, and then the spot was abandoned and a 
new clearing made. This system was in use as the 
only method till 1803 at least, as mentioned by White 
in his paper on Malabar cardamoms. 
The demand, however, of later years being too large 
for this method sufficing for the supply, cultivation on 
a large scale became the rule, and it has since been an 
important industry in Ceylon and India. 
NAMES 
Most of the Indian names of the spice are derived 
from the Sanskrit Eta^ such as Elachi (Hindu and 
Bengali), Yelaki (Kanarese), Eletari (whence the name 
of the genus Elettaria), Malabar Pala, Bhala (Burmese), 
Hila (Arabic). The name in Ceylon is Ensal or Enasal. 
The European languages use variants of the Greek 
Cardamomon, which as previously stated was originally 
applied to some totally different plant. 
The Malays use the word Kapulaga. 
CULTIVATION 
Soil . — The plant being naturally an inhabitant of 
the forests, requires a soil rich in humus. White de- 
scribes its locality in Malabar thus : “ Lofty hills whose 
summits are ever clothed with clouds, a moist atmo- 
