fruitful for seven years, if from seed for fourteen years. The pepper from plants raised from cuttings is said to be superior in quantity and quality, and this method is in consequence most frequently adopted here there are no trees the ground is made into terraces and enclosed by a mud wall, and branches of Erythrina indica are put into the ground in the rainy season and in the course of a year are capable of supporting the young pepper plants. In the meantime mango trees are planted, these being preferred as supports, since their fruit is not injured by the pepper plant, while the Erythrina is killed by it in fourteen or fifteen years.
In Sumatra the ground is cleared, ploughed, and sown with rice, and cuttings of the vine are planted in September, 5 ft. apart each way, together with a sapling of quick growth and rough bark. The plants are now left for twelve or eighteen months and then entirely buried, except a small piece of bent stem, whence new shoots arise, three or four of which are allowed to climb the tree near which they are planted. These shoots generally yield flowers and fruits the next year. 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. The harvest begins as soon as one or two berries at the base of the spikes begin to turn red, and before the fruit is mature, but when full grown and still hard, if allowed to ripen, the berries lose pungency, and ultimately fall off and are lost. The spikes are collected in bags or baskets and dried in the sun. When dry the pepper is put into bags containing from 64 to 128 ℔. In Sumatra the yield is estimated at about 112 ℔ per plant per annum. In Malabar each vine gives 2 ℔ a year up to the fifteenth or twentieth year, or about 24 ℔ from each tree, a single tree sometimes supporting eight or twelve vines; an acre is calculated to bear 2500 plants, to cost about £4 in outlay to bring it into bearing, and to yield a produce of £80 when in its best condition.
White pepper differs only in being prepared from the ripe fruits. These, after collection, are kept in the house three days and then bruised and washed in a basket with the hand until the stalks and pulpy matter are removed, after which the seeds are dried. It is, however, sometimes prepared from the dried black pepper by removing the dark outer layer. It is less pungent than the black but possesses a finer flavour. It is chiefly prepared at the island of Riouw, but the finest comes from Tellicherry.
White pepper affords on an average not more than 1.9% of essential oil; but, according to Cazeneuve, as much as 9% of piperine, and of ash not more than 1.1%.
Long pepper is the fruit-spike of Piper officinarum and P. longum, gathered shortly before it reaches maturity and dried. The former is a native of the Indian Archipelago, and has oblong ovate, acuminate leaves, which are pinnately veined. The latter is indigenous in the hotter provinces of India, Ceylon, Malacca and the Malay Islands, it is distinguished from P. officinarum by the leaves being cordate at the base and five-veined.
Long pepper appears to have been known to the ancient Greeks and Romans under the name of πέπερι μακρόν; and in the 10th century mention is made of long pepper, or macro piper, in conjunction with black and white peppers. The spice consists of a dense spike of minute baccate fruits closely packed around the central axis, the spike being about 112 in. long and 14 in. thick; as met with in commerce they have the appearance of having been limed. 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. Penang and Singapore are the principal centres in the East for its sale.
Ashanti or West African pepper is the dried fruit of Piper Clusii, a plant widely distributed in tropical Africa, occurring most abundantly in the country of the Niam-niam. It differs from black pepper in being rather smaller, less wrinkled, and in being attenuated into a stalk, like cubebs (the dried unripe fruits of P. Cubeba), to which it bears considerable resemblance externally. The taste, however, is pungent, exactly like that of pepper, and the fruit contains piperine. It was imported from the Grain Coast by the merchants of Rouen and Dieppe as earlv as 1364 and was exported from Benin by the Portuguese in 1485, but, according to Clusius, its importation was forbidden by the king of Portugal for fear it should depreciate the value of the pepper from India. In tropical Africa it is extensively used as a condiment, and it could easily be collected in large quantities if a demand for it should arise.
Jamaica pepper is the fruit of Pimento officinalis, an evergreen tree of the Myrtle family. It is more correctly termed " pimento " or "allspice," as it is not a true pepper.
Melegueta pepper, known also as "Guinea grains," "grains of paradise" (q.v.) or "alligator pepper," is the seed of Amomum Melegueta, a plant of the ginger family; the seeds are exceedingly pungent, and are used as a spice throughout central and northern Africa.
For Cayenne pepper, see that article.
PEPPER-CORN, the fruit or seed of the pepper plant, hence anything very small or insignificant. Pepper-corn rent is a merely nominal rent, reserved for the purpose of having the tenancy acknowledged by the tenant. Building leases frequently reserve a pepper-corn as rent for the first few years. See Rent.
PEPPERMINT, an indigenous perennial herb of the natural order Labiatae, and genus Mentha (see Mint), the specific name being Mentha piperita, is distinguished from other species of the genus by its stalked leaves and oblong-obtuse spike-like heads of flowers. It is met with, near streams and in wet places, in several parts of England and on the European continent, and is also extensively cultivated for the sake of its essential oil in England,[1] in several parts of continental Europe, and in the United States. Yet it was only recognized as a distinct species late in the 17th century, when Dr Eales discovered it in Hertfordshire and pointed it out to Ray, who published it in the second edition of his Synopsis stirpium britannicarum (1696). The medicinal properties of the plant were speedily recognized and it was admitted into the London Pharmacopoeia in 1721, under the name of Mentha piperitis sapore.
Fig. 1.—Mentha piperna.
a, Flowering branch (about 12 nat. size); b, flower showing form of calyx teeth (enlarged).
Two varieties are recognized by growers, the white and the black mint. The former has purplish and the latter green stems; the leaves are more coarsely serrated in the white. The black is more generally cultivated, probably because it is found to yield more oil, but that of the white variety is considered to have a more delicate odour, and obtains a higher price. The white is the kind chiefly dried for herbalists. The flavour varies to a slight extent even with particular plots of land, badly drained ground being known to give unfavourable results both as to the quantity and quality of the oil. That of the Japanese
- ↑ Near Mitcham in Surrey, Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, Market Deeping in Lincolnshire and Hitchin in Hertfordshire.
