owth, even after the cuttings have been kept some time in bundles,* if
put into the ground with the first rains; and the little thorns with
which it is armed enabling the vine to take a firmer hold. They are
distinguished into two sorts, the white and red, not from the colour of
the flowers (as might be supposed) for both are red, but from the tender
shoots of the one being whitish and of the other being of a reddish hue.
The bark of the former is of a pale ash colour, of the latter brown; the
former is sweet, and the food of elephants, for which reason it is not
much used in parts frequented by those animals; the latter is bitter and
unpalatable to them; but they are not deterred by the short prickles
which are common to the branches of both sorts.

(*Footnote. It is a common and useful practice to place these bundles of
cuttings in water about two inches deep and afterwards to reject such of
them as in that state do not show signs of vegetation.)

Trial has frequently been made of other trees, and particularly of the
bangkudu or mangkudu (Morinda citrifolia), but none have been found to
answer so well for these vegetating props. It has been doubted indeed
whether the growth and produce of the pepper-vine are not considerably
injured by the chinkareen, which may rob it of its proper nourishment by
exhausting the earth; and on this principle, in other of the eastern
islands (Borneo, for instance), the vine is supported by poles in the
manner of hops in England. Yet it is by no means clear to me that the
Sumatran method is so disadvantageous in the comparison as it may seem;
for, as the pepper-plant lasts many years, whilst the poles, exposed to
sun and rain, and loaded with a heavy weight, cannot be supposed to
continue sound above two seasons, there must be a frequent renewal,
which, notwithstanding the utmost care, must lacerate and often destroy
the vines. It is probable also that the shelter from the violence of the
sun's rays afforded by the branches of the vegetating prop, and which,
during the dry monsoon, is of the utmost consequence, may counterbalance
the injury occasioned by their roots; not to insist on the opinion of a
celebrated writer that trees, acting as siphons, derive from the air and
transmit to the earth as much of the principle of vegetation as is
expended in their nourishment.

When the most promising shoot of the chinkareen reserved for rearing has
attained the height of twelve to fifteen feet (