In the cultivation of pepper (Piper nigrum, L.)* the first circumstance that claims attention, and on which the success materially depends, is the choice of a proper site for the plantation. A preference is usually given to level ground lying along the banks of rivers or rivulets, provided they are not so low as to be inundated, both on account of the vegetable mould commonly found there, and the convenience of water-carriage for the produce. Declivities, unless very gentle, are to be avoided, because the soil loosened by culture is liable in such situations to be washed away by heavy rains. When these plains however are naked, or covered with long grass only, they will not be found to answer without the assistance of the plough and of manure, their fertility being exhausted by exposure to the sun. How far the returns in general might be increased by the introduction of these improvements in agriculture I cannot take upon me to determine; but I fear that, from the natural indolence of the natives, and their want of zeal in the business of pepper-planting, occasioned by the smallness of the advantage it yields to them, they will never be prevailed upon to take more pains than they now do. The planters therefore, depending more upon the natural qualities of the soil than on any advantage it might receive from their cultivation, find none to suit their purpose better than those spots which, having been covered with old woods and long fertilized by decaying foliage and trunks, have recently been cleared for ladangs or padi-fields, in the manner already described; where it was also observed that, being allured by the certainty of abundant produce from a virgin soil, and having land for the most part at will, they renew their toil annually, and desert the ground so laboriously prepared after occupying it for one, or at the furthest for two, seasons. Such are the most usual situations chosen for the pepper plantations (kabun) or gardens, as they are termed; but, independently of the culture of rice, land is very frequently cleared for the pepper in the first instance by felling and burning the trees. (*Footnote. See Remarks on the Species of Pepper (and on its Cultivation) at Prince of Wales Island, by Dr. William Hunter, in the Asiatic Researches Volume 9 page 383.) FORMATION OF THE GARDEN.