X 
CARDAMOMS 
331 
the jungle, and letting the sun and breezes into patches 
of forest where the plants previously appeared scanty 
and weak. In this way I have seen considerable areas 
in the Malay peninsula, which had been felled, covered 
soon after with a dense forest of wild bananas to the 
exclusion of almost everything else. 
The Coorgs, says Ludlow, have many signs by which 
they are more or less influenced when selecting sites for 
new gardens. Many know the good jungles by tradition 
from their ancestors. In a doubtful jungle they will 
fell a few trees here and there, and judge the following 
year of its capabilities as a cardamom jungle by the 
presence or absence of young cardamom plants near the 
felled trees. 
In Travancore, the author of the Madras Manual 
states that the cardamoms grow spontaneously in the 
deep shade of the forest, and the owners of the gardens 
come from the low country east of the Ghauts to cut 
the brushwood and burn the creepers and otherwise 
clear the soil for the growth of the plants, early in the 
season, so as to be ready by the advent of the rains. 
They return to gather the crop in October and November, 
and a writer in the Madras Mail says that the plants 
will only grow in certain places, and the presence of a 
few wild plants safely indicates that the soil will suit 
the cultivation. The ground is cleared of all under- 
growth and the seeds are sown before the monsoon. In 
October, when the young cardamoms spring up, it is 
necessary to thin them out where they are too crowded, 
and to sow the ground with seed where they are too 
sparse (Watt’s Dictionary), 
For the next two years, according to the writer in 
the Malay Mail, and for four years, according to White, 
nothing more is done except to put a fence around the 
clearing, though in some places the cultivator weeds 
over the ground in the following year. 
The plants commence flowering about two years 
after the ground is cleared, and ripen some fruit about 
five months later, but a full crop is not got till at 
