The Cardamom plant, which is peculiar to the Ghaut forests of Malabar, deserves passing notice from the singular method adopted by the jungle tribes of natives in its cultivation and for other reasons. It is found only in open patches in the midst ofdense Ghaut jungles where the rainfall is the heaviest and the climate coolest. Its cultivation by the jungle tribes is thus undertaken: At the height of the dry season, when all moisture has vanished from the forest and the intolerable myriads of land leeches with it, a few men advance, axe in hand, into the forest until they come upon a suitable spot on the hillside bearing a group of larger trees than is to be found in the surrounding jungle. From three to four of these giants are felled, which crushin their fall a goodly number of other trees of smaller dimensions and saplings. As the trees fall down hill their mighty heads of branches are smashed and broken into innumerable fragments, rendering unnecessary any act of cutting or lopping. The treesare then left on the ground to decay. During the ensuing rainy season the seedling Cardamom plants appear above the ground without any previous act of sowing or planting on the part of the native cultivators whatever. The plants increase in size till the end of the third year, by which time they have developed into large clumps, frequently reaching a height of from 10 to 15 feet, when they produce their first crop. These patches are visited periodically during the growth of the plants, which are relieved from the encroachment of weeds and undergrowth, and this process comprises the sum total of the cultivation of the cardamom plant, if indeed, such a term be admissible. We can only fall back on the supposition that the seeds of the plant have lain ina dormant state, perchance for ages, in the soil of the darkened jungle, which the light of day but partially penetrates, awaiting the advent of the sun's rays to call them into life. In no other way, I think, can the appearance of the young plants underthe circumstances described be accounted for. This phenomenon is by no means confined to this plant, nor to the moister and cooler portions of the district. Clearing for Coffee on Bamboo land are almost immediately after planting clad with a veritable carpet of seedlings of a species of Ageratum over their whole area, when not a single plant of the species can be found in a truly wild state for miles around. This fact, considering the nature of the climate and the annual jungle fires that sweep the country, is a very startling one. The flowering spikes of the Cardamom are produced from the base of the stems, and are totally hidden by decayed leaves and other vegetable matter, and never appear on the surface from their first period of growth till the ripening of the fruit, so that all the functions of the reproductive organs of the plant are performed in the dark. The operation of gathering the fruit begins about the beginning of October, and is a matter of some trouble and difficulty owing to the innumerable land leeches that infest the jungle at that time of year.
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