DB. COLUKaAVOOD ON XUTMEG-CULTIYATION IK SITs^GAPOKE, 63 



of time to be the most important production of Singapore. The 

 original Cocoa-nut plantations are yielding golden returns ; and 

 within the last ten years or less, a great impetus has been given 

 to the propagation of a tree to which the sandy and poor soil of 

 Singapore seems admirably adapted. The trees thrive, and the 

 only drawback is that several years must elapse before they 

 attain such a growth as to yield any recompense for the original 

 expenditure. The uses of the tree are numerous ; but it is to 

 the oil that the planter looks for his reward. ^ "With proper 

 machinery for separating this oil, the rapidly extending Cocoa-nut 

 plantations bid fair to place Cocoa-nut oil in an important position 

 among the exports from Singapore. The Cocoa-nuts, however, 

 are not free from their enemies, in the shape of a large Curculio, 

 as big or bigger than the English stag-beetle, which feeds upon the 

 terminal bud of the palm-stem. "When thus attacked, the bud 

 dies, and the crown of leaves falls off, leaving the graceful Cocoa- 

 nut tree a mere tall bare pole. Such bare poles I have seen 

 representing all that remains of the Betel-nut Palm (Areca 

 Catechu), which is subject to the attacks of a similar beetle. In 

 Penang, thousands of cocoa-nuts are destroyed by the ravages 

 of this insect. At the present moment, however, the cultivation 

 of Cocoa-nuts is merely in its infancy ; and the exports are confined 

 to places in the immediate neighbourhood of Singapore. 



P.S. In conversation with a gentleman who once cultivated 

 Nutmegs on a large scale, I was assured by him that he could 

 distinguish at least two forms of disease. In one of these it was 

 deep-seated and radical. In many trees which he cut down for , 

 the purpose, he found that the central part of the main stem was 

 turning black ; and this gave the first indications of the onset of 

 the disease, which was soon followed by the falling of the leaves 

 and the whitening of the branches. 



With regard to the other form of disease, he distinctly traced 

 it to the attacks of what, from his description, must have been a 

 small black aphis, which perforated the branches, and caused 

 them to wither one by one. I find no two accounts to be 

 precisely alike in respect to the manner of falling away of the 

 trees ; but all agree that their destruction was rapid, certain, and 



irremediable. 



S(W 



scale, about eight miles from Singapore. The plantation (con- 

 taining at present 10,000 trees) is still young, and will not begin 

 to yield for about five years ; but the flourishing state of the 



