The usual mode of propagating the pepper is by cuttings, a foot or two in length, of the horizontal shoots that run along the ground from the foot of the old vines (called lado sulur), and one or two of these are planted within a few inches of the young chinkareen at the same time with it if of the long kind, or six months after if of the short kind, as before described.  Some indeed prefer an interval of twelve months; as in good soil the luxuriancy of the vine will often overpower and bear down the prop, if it has not first acquired competent strength.  In such soil the vine rises two or three feet in the course of the first year, and four or five more in the second, by which time, or between the second and third year of its growth, it begins to show its blossom (be-gagang), if in fact it can be called such, being nothing more than the germ of the future bunch of fruit, of a light straw colour, darkening to green as the fruit forms.  These germs or blossoms are liable to fall untimely (gugur) in very dry weather, or to be shaken off in high winds (although from this accident the gardens are in general well sheltered by the surrounding woods), when, after the fairest promise, the crop fails.

TURNING DOWN THE VINES.

In the rainy weather that succeeds the first appearance of the fruit the whole vine is loosened from the chinkareen and turned down again into the earth, a hole being dug to receive it, in which it is laid circularly or coiled, leaving only the extremity above ground, at the foot of the chinkareen, which it now reascends with redoubled vigour, attaining in the following season the height of eight or ten feet, and bearing a full crop of fruit.  There is said to be a great nicety in hitting the exact time proper for this operation of turning down; for if it be done too soon, the vines have been known not to bear till the third year, like fresh plants; and on the other hand the produce is ultimately retarded when they omit to turn them down until after the first fruit has been gathered; to which avarice of present, at the expense of future advantage, sometimes inclines the owners.  It is not very material how many stems the vine may have in its first growth, but now one only, if strong, or two at the most, should be suffered to rise and cling to the prop:  more would be superfluous and only weaken the whole.  The supernumerary shoots however are usefully employed, being either conducted through narrow trenches to adjacent chinkareens whose vines have failed, or taken off at the root and transplanted to others more distant, where, coiled round and buried as the former, they rise with the same vigour, and the garden is completed of uniform growth, although many of its original vines have not succeeded.  With these offsets or layers (called anggor and tettas) new gardens may be at once formed; the necessary chinkareens being previously planted, and of sufficient growth to receive them.