The betel-nut palm (_Areca catechu_), which is also taxed has a long slender smooth stem, and graceful curving fronds. I have seen palm-trees in the South Sea islands, many kinds in the forests of South America, and in India; but, of the whole tribe, the betel-nut palm is certainly the most elegant and beautiful. Dr. Hooker likens it "to an arrow shot from heaven, raising its graceful head and feathery crown in luxuriance and beauty above the verdant slopes." A tree will produce 300 nuts in the year, and continues to bear for twenty-five years. The nut is very hard, the size of a cherry, and is chewed by all the natives of India with the leaves of the betel-pepper (_Chavica betel_) spread with _chunam_. It is cut into long narrow pieces, and rolled up in the leaves of the betel-pepper or pawn. It makes the mouth and teeth red, and gives the chewer a disgusting appearance. The consumption must be enormous, for it is chewed by 50,000,000 of men, and, next to tobacco, is the most extensively used narcotic; but it has none of the excellent properties of the coca-leaf of the Peruvians. The jack (_Artocarpus integrifolius_), the only other tree which is taxed in Malabar, grows to a considerable size, and the wood is much used for furniture of all kinds. The fruit, a favourite article of food, is of enormous dimensions, and grows out of the trunk. In Travancore they put the whole fruit in the ground, and, when the young shoots grow up, the stems are tied together with straw, and by degrees they form one stem, bearing fruit in six or seven years.[395] Besides the taxed trees, the gardens round Calicut generally contain mangos and nux vomica. In addition to the rice or wet cultivation, and the above-mentioned trees, the upland or dry cultivation of rice and sesame or gingelee oil-seed is assessed on an annual inspection: forty per cent. of the gross produce of the former being deducted, on account of the peculiar labour and probable loss, and twenty per cent. of the remainder being the Government share. The sesame cultivation has no deduction from the gross produce; and ginger, pepper, and some other dry crops are free of land-tax. The pepper cultivation is chiefly carried on in northern Malabar, and ginger in the Shernaad district, south of Calicut, by the Moplahs.[396]