The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom / Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.

by P. L. Simmonds

Colonel Low, in his "Dissertation on Pinang," published at Singapore some years ago, gives an interesting account of the culture:—

"Pepper was, during many years, the staple product of Pinang soil, the average annual quantity having been nearly four millions of pounds; but previous to the year 1810, the above amount had decreased to about two-and-a-half millions of pounds, which was the result of the continental system.

The price having fallen at length to three and three-and-a-half dollars the picul—with only a few occasional exceptions of rises—the cultivation of this spice was gradually abandoned, and the total product at this day does not exceed 2,000 piculs. The original cost, when pepper was at a high price, together with charges of transporting it to Europe, amounted to £36,357 for every five hundred tons, and the loss by wastage was estimated at £5,405. In 1818 there remained on the island 1,480,265 pepper vines in bearing, and the average value of exports of pepper from Pinang, including that received from other places, was averaged at 106,870 Spanish dollars.

As might have been foreseen, the fall of prices has so greatly diminished the cultivation of pepper to the eastward, that a reaction is likely to take place; and has in fact partly shown itself already. Some Chinese in Pinang and Province Wellesley seem to be preparing to renew the cultivation. There is abundant scope for the purpose on both sides of the harbour, and every facility is at hand for carrying it on.

The pepper plant or vine requires a good soil, the richer the better, but the red soil of the higher hills is not congenial, the Chinese think, to it. The undulations skirting the bases of the hills, and the deep alluvial lands, where not saturated with water, or liable to be overflowed, are preferred.

The Chinese have always been the chief cultivators, and when the speculation flourished they received advances from the merchants, which they paid back in produce at fixed rates.

When pepper was extensively cultivated on Prince of Wales Island, the European owner of the land had the forest cleared by contract, and the vines planted by contract, and when the vines came into bearing the plantation was farmed to the Chinese from year to year, on payment of a specific quantity of pepper. Any other plan would have ruined the capitalist, as the culture is almost entirely in their hands in the Straits' Settlements, and they will not work so well for others as when they are specially interested.

The plants are set out at intervals, every way, of from seven to twelve feet, according to the degree of fertility of the soil, so that there are from 800 to 1,000 vines in one orlong of land; to each vine is allotted a prop of from ten to thirteen feet high, cut from the thorny tree called dadap, or where that is scarce, from the less durable boonglai; these props take root, thus affording both shade and support to the plant. The plant may be raised from seed pepper, but the plan is not approved of, cuttings being preferable, as they soonest come into bearing. The pits in which these cuttings are set should be a foot-and-a-half square, and two feet in depth; manure is not often applied, and then it is only some turf ashes. However unpicturesque a pepper plantation may be, still its neat and uniform appearance renders the landscape lively, and there can be little doubt that the island has suffered in its salubrity since the jungle usurped the extensive tracts formerly under pepper cultivation.

When the vine has reached the height of three or four feet, it is bent down and laid in the earth, and about five of the strongest shoots which now spring up are retained and carefully trained up the prop, to which they are tied by means of ligatures of some creeping plants.

One Chinese, after the plantation has been formed, can take care of two orlongs of land. The usual mode is this:—an advance is made by the capitalist to the laborer for building a house, and for agricultural implements; he then receives two dollars monthly to subsist on, until the end of the third year, when the estate or plantation is equally divided betwixt the contracting parties.