370 
SPICES 
CHAP. 
quite possible that this is due to the bad drying of the 
local fruit, which has often a bad colour, being rather 
yellow than red when dry, probably due to damp, for I 
have seen excellent clean-coloured dried capsicums 
prepared with artificial heat by a European from the 
plants ordinarily cultivated here* The natives attribute 
the inferiority of locally dried capsicums to the want of 
sufiicient sun-heat, and say that they do not like 
artificially dried ones. 
India . — Chilies are grown in India extensively as a 
field crop, being grown in rotation with pulse seeds, oil 
seeds, or after potatoes. N. G-. Mukerji gives an 
account of their cultivation in his Handbook of Indian 
Agriculture. He says that sandy loam and newly 
formed alluvium on the banks of rivers do well for this 
crop, but dry rock soils containing plenty of lime 
produce the best crop. 
The seedlings are raised in nursery beds in a cool 
and shady spot. The soil is well pulverised, and rotted 
manure and lime and ashes applied. The seed is sown 
in May, and when the seedlings are 6 or 7 in. high, 
they are transplanted after a good shower of rain at a 
distance of 27 by 18 in. apart. This is done in July 
and August. 
The land for planting out is prepared very early in 
the season ; in December or January this is effected with 
the hoe, or by the local plough and grubber. The 
ground should be worked over by the grubber once a 
month till the planting season. The cultivation of 
field-crops in India is far more common and better 
understood than anywhere else in the tropics. The 
whole system is very different from anything in Ceylon 
and the Straits Settlements. It is done on a much 
larger scale, and as it has been pursued probably far 
longer than in any other part of the tropical East, the 
ground is in a more cultivated condition than else- 
where. The flat open plains ploughed over continu- 
ously for unknown generations can be more easily 
worked, and a larger series of agricultural implements 
