The usual mode is this:—­an advance is made by the capitalist to the laborer for building a house, and for agricultural implements; he then receives two dollars monthly to subsist on, until the end of the third year, when the estate or plantation is equally divided betwixt the contracting parties.

The Chinese and even European cultivators used formerly to engage the Chinese who had just arrived from China; they paid off their passage-money, and then allowed them two dollars monthly, for provisions, for one year; with a suit of clothes, by which means the cost of the labor of one man averaged about three dollars monthly; but this plan is attended with risks.

The cost attendant on the cultivation of two orlongs of land, with
pepper, for three years—­the Chinese laborer receiving the usual
hire of five Spanish dollars monthly—­will be nearly as follows:—­

Spanish dollars. 
Price of land, clearing, and planting 40
Quit rent, at 75 cents per annum per orlong 9
Two thousand plants 4
" dadap props 6
Implements 6
House 10
Labor 200
Interest, loosely calculated at 30
—–­
Total Spanish dollars 305

In a very good soil a pepper vine will yield about one-eighth of a pound of dry produce at the end of the first year; at the end of the second, about a quarter of a pound; and at the expiration of the third, probably one pound; at the end of the fourth, from three to three-and-a-half pounds; ditto fifth, from eight to ten pounds.  After the fifth year up to the fifteenth, or even the twentieth year, about ten pounds of dry merchantable produce may be obtained from each vine, under favorable circumstances.  The Chinese speculator used to rent out his half-share of a new plantation for five years, to his cultivating partner, after the expiration of the first three years, at the rate of thirty piculs per annum; the total produce of these five years giving about fifty-six piculs annually as an average.

A pepper plantation never survives the thirtieth year, unless in extremely rich soil, and then it is unproductive; nor will the young vine thrive on an old worn out pepper land, a peculiarity which is applicable to the coffee tree.  The chief crop lasts from August to February.  Four pounds of dry produce, for ten of green, is considered a fair estimate.  Great care is requisite in the management of the vine, and especially in training and tying it on the props.  It is subject to be injured by the attacks of a small insect.  The green pepper dries in two or three days, and if it is intended that it shall be black, it is pulled before it is quite ripe.  To make white pepper,