The city of Penang, in the Straits Settlement, exported in the year 1904, 53,613 bags of black pepper and 22,415 bags of white pepper, being about half of the entire supply, and the Island of Ceylon exported in 1904, 2,746 cwt. of pepper valued at $379.83. Saigon, China, has also many acres under cultivation. Of course, when the price of pepper is high, there is more profit for the grower, and the laborer is given more employment, since the acreage is increased. Advances of money are made to the Chinaman by the merchants, who take security on the growing pepper at a rate fixed much below its actual value. The Chinaman on this advance money erects a small building required as a home, and purchases his farming implements and has two dollars monthly for food and for opium, and at the end of the third year the plantation is equally divided between the contracting parties. One man can take care of about 3,000 plants after they come into bearing. Ashantee pepper or West African (and as it is sometimes called, African Cubebs) is the fruit of the piper, (Cubeb) “Clusii,” and is principally from Niam-Niam, a district in Guinea bordering on the Gulf of Guinea in Africa, and is locally used as a substitute for black pepper, but has a hollow berry, much smaller and less wrinkled. In the southwest of India, where pepper grows wild, it is found in rich, moist soil, usually in narrow valleys. It propagates itself by running along on the ground and throwing off shoots every few feet. The natives, in caring for it, merely tie the ends of the vines to trees at distances at least six feet apart, and especially to those having a rough bark, as the vine readily clings to the rough surface of the tree. In India the berries of (Embelia) (Samara) Ribes are often mixed with pepper. There is also a fruit called _Melegueta_ pepper, known also as “Guinea Grains,” Grains of Paradise, or Alligator pepper, which is the seed of _Amomum Mele Gueta_, a plant of the ginger family, which contains seeds which are exceedingly pungent and are used as a spice through Central and Northern Africa. The cultivation of the pepper plant in the Western Hemisphere has been attended with fair success where it has been perseveringly pursued, but there is little probability that it can successfully compete even in the West India islands with that of those countries where the plant is indigenous. Jamaica pepper, which is a native of the Island of Jamaica, belongs more to the fruit of pimenta, an account of which is given under a separate chapter. The yield of pepper varies in different localities and may be from one and one-half to eight or ten pounds to a single vine. The third year the yield is one catty; fourth year, one and one-half catty; the fifth year, three and one-half catties, a catty being one and one-third pounds. Four thousand pounds is a good average to one acre. Ten pounds of green berries make only four to five pounds when dried and bagged for the market.