284 THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [October i, 1885. 



doubt that ibis burnt timber, or rather the ashes of it, 

 supply an excellent manure. 



The labour employed maybe distributed under three 

 classes. There are, firstly, Malays and Batalc tribes- 

 men, who fell heavy timber, do general clearance, and 

 build sheds; then come the Klings from the Madras 

 districts, who occupy themselves with drainage and 

 roadmaking ; and lastly, we have the Chinese for 

 planting, sorting, and preparation of the weed. The 

 plauliug is conducted on a co-operative system. Ooolies 

 h&ve their fields allotted to them, and plant at their 

 own risk under supervision. Their payment depends 

 on the yield. An industrious coolie would, un an aver- 

 age, net iu the course of a year 100 to 150 Dutch 

 florins, and on this sum he pays to the Dutch Govern- 

 ment 2 per cent by way of income tax. The cooly, 

 however, arrives in the country with a deVit of from 

 fl. 100 to fl. 150, and thus as a rule is not clear and able 

 to leave with a balance in hand till the end of the second 

 year. The coolie is engaged for a year, but he generally 

 re-engages, and takes his departure in the begiuning of 

 tho third year. 



The Dutch Government regulations with regard to 

 the maintenance of a medical man by every estate 

 and to the erection of hospitals for sick coolies are 

 stringent, and, on the whole, the coolie-lines, con- 

 sidering their temporary nature, are adequate, so that 

 the lot of the coolie in Deli may be regarded as a 

 favourable one, even when compared with places where 

 he is under British control. 



The importing of British Indians, as is well known, 

 is not tolerated, though many have found their way 

 into the country uuder the stimulus of high wag:es, 

 the latter running from S? to §10 a mouth, according 

 to capacity. The act recently passed by our Indian 

 Goveroment to regulate coolie emigration to the Straits 

 Settlements will, it is generally feared, close the out- 

 let in Deli for Briti.sh Indian labour. This is a matter 

 for regret, more especially in respect of those coolies 

 who, having already worked out tlieir contracts in the 

 Straits, are anxious to improve their prospects. 



The difficulties of communication of course tend to 

 make the cost of living dear, and as a consequence of 

 the isolated position of most of the planters the choice 

 of food is very restiicted. On the whole the health 

 of the country may be considered good, the nights 

 and mornings being fresh and cool, though unseason- 

 able weather often brings with it epidemics of lever 

 and berri-berri, especially among new comers, many 

 of whom arrive in a sickly condition, which naturally 

 predisposes them to such ailments. 



DKY LANDS IN SOUTHERN INDIA AND SUIT- 

 ABLE CULTIVATION. 

 Southern India is more liable to drought than the 

 rest of the country. It is nearer the equator. Its 

 rivers are entirely rain-fed ; they have at their sources 

 no snow-capped mountains to supply them during the 

 hot season ; and the courses of most of them are short, 

 and, on the whole, steep ; and the land in which these 

 have their source and course, has not much forest to 

 retain moisture ; and hence the rivers are either in 

 high and rapidly flowing iiood, or dry. For a few 

 days or weeks in the year they cannot be crossed from 

 the excess and violent flow of water; tor a few more 

 weeks they have water enough in them to justify their 

 being called rivers ; and then they become sandy or 

 stony wastes, nearly as hard to cross to tho hare-footed 

 pedestrian, from their burning heat, as at tlood time. 

 The high western mountains, which have nmch soil 

 on them, and at whose base there are considerable 

 forests, receive much more rain throughout the year 

 than the country east of them, and are more retentive 

 of the water they thus receive than the other hills in 

 Southern India, which are generally bare and rocky. 

 Hence the rivers that rise in the Western ghauts have 

 more water in them than those that rise in the central 

 table-land or among the Eastern ghauts ; and their 

 longer course is less steep on the whole. Of course. 



all the rivers have more water, and have water longer 

 in them, at their mouth, and in the long belt of low- 

 land plain between the Eastern hills and the sea, than 

 in the interior ; and there their flow is gentler. It is iu 

 this i)lain, therefore, and at the deltas of the larger 

 rivers, that there are the most considerable dams 

 and canals for irrigation in all India. And in the 

 interior, in most of the jilaces where the contour 

 of the country admits of it, dams are constructed 

 and a little at least of the annual rainfall is re- 

 tained. Thus it comes about that in the Madras 

 presidency there is a larger proportion of irrigated, 

 to what is called dry, land than in the rest of 

 India. For all India the proportion of irrigated 

 land to cultivated dry land, is less than seven per 

 cent. In Southern India it amounts to twenty-one 

 per cent. But even this is far too little. And, 

 indeed, it must, we fear, be admitted that the 

 high ratio of wet to dry laud is iu part due to 

 the large extent of dry land which, though cultiv- 

 able, is not cultivated. If the area of irrigated land 

 were compared with the area of all the cultivable 

 dry land in the presidency, the ratio would show 

 less favourably for the irrigated land. In Southern 

 India not only is there a vast area of cultivable waste 

 land ; but much of the cultivated dry land, though 

 of good quality, yields very poor results, because 

 of drought. The land parched, and the air is dry. 

 In the low Carnatic plain, and in the Northern 

 Circars, the soil contains moisture throughout the 

 year to a far gi'eater extent than in the interior 

 uplands, from which the drainage comes to it, while 

 its low and level condition prevents its passing its 

 moisture on to the sea as rapidly as it receives it. 

 Moreover, as the atmosphere of the jjlain near the 

 sea, receives moisture from the sea, it is far less 

 dry and siccant than in the interior, and there is, 

 therefore, less evaporation from the ground. For 

 these reasons, even with less rainfall, and with a 

 poorer soil (as soils are commonly estimated) cult- 

 ivation can be carried on through a greater 

 part of the year, and yield better results, in 

 the littoral regions than in the i^lateaus. In 

 the latter, here and there, near a large tank 

 or resei-voir, there is an oasis during the early 

 part of the hot weather ; a thousand or two acres 

 of a second sowing of paddy or other wet grain 

 preserves a little moisture in the air above it, and 

 in the immediate vicinity. But when even that 

 crop is taken up, so dry does the air become, that 

 none but hardy plants can endure or survive it, 

 even though watered and sheltered from tlie flcrce 

 sunlight. This fact — the extreme dryness of both 

 the soil and of the air in the interior — seems to 

 have been overlooked by Mr. C. K. Subba llau, 

 when, in a lecture before the Agricultural Stud- 

 ents' Association in March last, he argued thus : — 

 " Of the lt)| millions acres of dry land in this 

 Presidency, only 478,371 acres, or scarcely half-a- 

 million acres, carried a second crop during 18«2-S8, 

 when the season was very favorable, as the Ad- 

 ministration Keport for that year will show. What 

 was done with IG^ millions acres of dry land 

 during the year ? It must, of course, have been 

 lying waste. These l(j^ millions acres could have 

 been made to produce two crops of horse-gram 

 for green manure or fodder, one before, and tlie 

 other after the cold weather crop. Even the 

 478,371 acres could have been made to produce 

 one crop of horse-gram previous to the hot weather 

 crop. The weather was very favorable in l88'.^-83 

 for growing horse-gram during any three months 

 between .January and iUay, and again between May 

 and September. In ordinary seasons, the harvest- 

 ing of the cold weather food corn crops may be 

 arranged to take place early in January. It will 



