Am,  Jour.  Pharm. 
July,  1888. 
The  Cardamom  Plant. 
367 
In  its  natural  climate  and  soil,  a  sandy  loam  devoid  of  clay,  the 
plant  begins  to  bear  in  the  second  and  yields  a  full  crop  in  the  fourth 
year.  My  experience  does  not  enable  me  to  state  precisely  the  yield 
of  each  tree.  I  think  that  the  planter  may  consider  himself  fortunate 
if  he  succeeds  in  harvesting  on  the  average  one-quarter  pound  of  dry 
cardamoms  per  tree  in  the  total  number  of  sixty  trees  which  occupy 
an  acre,  in  the  fourth  year,  less  a  certain  percentage  of  loss  occasioned 
by  rats,  squirrels  and  snakes,  all  of  which  species  of  vermin  evince  a 
partiality  for  the  fruit  and  are  ever  on  the  watch  to  pounce  upon  it 
the  moment  it  becomes  ripe ;  and  this  entails  the  necessity  of  great 
watchfulness  on  the  part  of  the  planter  to  forestall  these  marauders, 
and  be  in  the  happy  position  of  that  early  bird  which  proverbially 
"  gets  the  worm.^'  Each  stalk,  as  it  completes  its  functions  in  bring- 
ing its  scape  to  maturity  and  becomes  effete,  is  succeeded  by  another 
stalk,  sprouting  from  the  parent  rhizome,  which  begins  to  bear  in  the 
course  of  a  year ;  and  in  this  order  the  growth  proceeds  with  success- 
ive renovations,  until  the  plant  attains  its  ultimate  span  of  existence, 
in  the  lapse  of  time ;  the  extent  or  duration  of  which  is  not  known 
to  the  writer. 
Until  Ceylon  glutted  the  home  markets,  cardamom  sold  well,  but 
they  hardly  fetch  remunerative  prices  now,  as  the  quotations  have 
fallen  from  5s.  a  lb.  to  Is.  4:d.,  and  even  less  for  the  small  kinds,  of 
which  there  is  a  considerable  proportion  in  all  lots,  and  which  sell  for 
about  8c?.  per  pound.  The  spontaneous  way  in  which  the  plant  was  for  a 
long  time  supposed  to  be  exclusively  produced,  viz.,  from  the  concus- 
sion of  the  ground  occasioned  by  the  fall  of  a  large  tree  felled  over 
it,  was,  if  not  a  purely  fanciful  idea,  probably  a  cunning  one  sug- 
gested by  the  interested  motives  of  those  who  were  the  fortunate  hold- 
ers of  the  cardamom  hills  and  habitats.  Whether  such  an  origin  has 
any  better  foundation  to  rest  upon  than  the  mere  imagination,  it 
would  be  idle  here  to  discuss  as  there  is  no  question  of  the  fact  that 
cardamoms  can  be  reared  from  seed  sown  in  shaded  nurseries  in  the 
ordinary  way,  or  from  the  division  of  the  rhizome  into  parts  contain- 
ing young  shoots  or  eyes  fit  for  development  into  them.  The  for- 
mer is  undoubtedly  the  quickest  way  of  forming  a  plantation ;  al- 
though it  must  be  admitted  the  seed  is  singularly  slow  in  germinating, 
taking  never  less  than  three  and  often  as  many  as  five  months  before 
the  little  spikes  show  themselves  above  ground.  Within  a  year  from 
this  time  the  plant  will,  with  careful  culture,  have  attained  a  sufficient 
