“ Two crops are collected every year, the principal one being in December and January and the other in July and August, the latter yielding pepper of inferior quality and in less quantity.
Two or three varieties are met with in cultivation; that yielding the best kinds has broadly ovate leaves, five to seven in number, nerved and stalked. The flower-spikes are opposite the leaves, stalked and from 3 to 6 in. long; the fruits are sessile and fleshy. A single stem will bear from twenty to thirty of these spikes. ”

“ In Bengal the plants are cultivated by suckers, which are planted about 5 ft apart on dry rich soil on high ground. An English acre will yield about 3 maunds (80 ℔) the first year, 12 the second, and 18 the third year; after this time the yield decreases, and the roots are therefore grubbed up and sold as pipli mul, under which name they are much used as a medicine in India. After the fruit is collected, which is usually in January, the stem and leaves die down to the ground. Long pepper contains piperine, resin and volatile oil and yields about 8% of ash. ”

“ In localities where the pepper does not grow wild, ground is selected which permits of free drainage, but which is not too dry nor liable to inundation, and cuttings are planted at about a foot from the trees either in the rainy season in June or in the dry season in February Sometimes several cuttings about 18 in. long are placed in a basket and buried at the root of the tree, the cuttings being made to slope towards the trunk. In October or November the young plants are manured with a mixture of leaves and cow-dung. ”