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 form