52 DR. COLLiyGWOOB ON NTJTMEG-CULTIVATIOK IK SINGAPORE. 



into small blocks an inch square, and is then ready for the market. 

 The workers in these plantations are exclusively Chinese ; and 

 the proprietors are also of that nation. The Gambier is a plant 

 which very rapidly exhausts the soil ; and the quantity of wood 

 required for boiling the shoots demands the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of an inexhaustible supply. In course of time, there- 

 fore, the wood has all been cut down close to the plantation ; and 

 the fact of having to convey it a mile or so is fatal to the successful 

 cultivation of the drug ; consequently Gambier-planting is now 

 fast disappearing in Singapore. 



It had always been found profitable to combine with Gambier- 

 planting the cultivation of Pepper ; partly because this could be 

 attended to in the intervals of Gambier- cropping, but chiefly 

 because the boiled shoots and leaves of the Gambier, after the 

 astringent was extracted, formed an excellent ready-made manure 

 for the Pepper, free of expense, which no other manure would 

 liave paid. As therefore the planting of Gambier declines, that 

 of Pepper must necessarily decline also ; and as the two rose 

 together, so they must also fall together. Considerable quantities 

 of Pepper are still produced in Singapore, but not nearly so 

 much as formerly ; and many of the Gambier and Pepper clearances 

 have reverted to the Government. In the peninsula of Johore, 

 however, there are abundance of Pepper and Gambier plantations. 



It may be asked, however, If Singapore has failed in realizing 

 the expectations of planters in so many instances, and so many 

 dilFerent crops have one by one proved ruinous to their pro- 

 prietors, what tvill grow remuneratively in the island ? or will 

 anything do so ? The answer to this has been solved of late 

 years. In the first place it is found that all fruit-trees flourish 

 in the soil of Singapore ; and Breadfruit, Jack, Dookoo, Man- 

 gosteen. Pineapple, Plantain, Eambootan, Custard Apple, Mango, 

 Guava, and Durian, with many others, now occupy the planta- 

 tions in which Nutmegs were formerly grown. The last-named 

 fruit, so great a favourite with some, and so detested by others, 

 is produced in such quantities that fifty dollars are given for the 

 produce of a single tree. 



But the one tree in which is now centred the promise and the 

 liope of the Singapore planters is the Cocoa-nut. It does not 

 appear io be indigenous; for none are found in the jungle; but it 

 has long been introduced by the Malays. It is comparatively of 

 late years, however, that European planters have looked upon it 

 as a source of wealth, and foreseen that it may prove in course 



