214 



From 1897 the extension of the planting in Malacca was as 

 follows : — 



1897 about 3 acres, all Government trees. 



1898 23 „ , twenty (or half of forty) belonging to 



Mr. Tan Chay Yan. 



Of these 117,200 acres, 65,818 are in the hands of 40 considerable 

 companies, and the rest, amounting to 51,382 is in private hands, be- 

 ing very largely in quite small blocks. 



In computing these figures of acreage, catch crops have been 

 taken into consideration ; thus, an area planted with tapioca under 

 rubber or an area planted with gambier under rubber, is credited bet- 

 ween the two crops in the making up of the total, but as the catch 

 crop is cut out, the whole is credited to the permanent crop, i.e., rubber. 

 Therefore an increase of area may be due to two causes, either to 

 actual planting of rubber trees or to the removal of a catch crop 

 under them, and the great extension of the area under rubber in 1913 

 is due mainly to this removal of catch crops and not to new plant- 

 ings, which account for but a tithe. On the figures, 6.7 per cent, of 

 the whole present area is the increase of 1911, and 12.8 per cent, the 

 increase of 1912, but 18.6 per cent, is the increase of 1913. Malacca^s 

 stake in the industry is represented by the figures ; but what the 

 stake really is, may perhaps be better put in the following table. 



Area of the Territory of Malacca — 461,120 acres. — 



