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APPLICATION OF THE AGRICULTURAL PESTS 

 ENACTMENT. 



By F. W. South, b.a. 

 (Chief Agricultural Inspector, F.M.8.) 



Introduction. 

 ^ "lULTIVATED crops in any country are liable to two classes of 

 diseases, those occurring in the country, and those introduced 

 from outside. In order to provide means of controlling these two 

 classes of disease in the Federated Malay States, the Agricultural 

 Pests Enactment was passed in 1913 and became law upon its 

 publication in the Gazette on 1st August of that year. 



The Enactment. 

 The main provisions of the Enactment provide for the control 

 of diseases occurring in the country while powers under a certain 

 section enable the Chief Secretary to make rules for preventing the 

 introduction of pests into the Federated Malay States, by 

 prohibiting the landing from places outside the States of any plant 

 or animal likely to introduce a pest and by providing for the 

 treatment or destruction of any plant or animal which has been 

 landed and of the packages, cases, pots or covering in which the 

 same may be contained. 



As the known diseases of rubber are common to practically all 

 rubber producing countries in the East, it has not been considered 

 necessary to ask the Chief Secretary to provide any rules in 

 connection with the importation of plants, especially as such 

 importations are not at present extensive in the Federated Malay 

 States. 



The measures for the control of such diseases as already occur 

 or may arise in the future may be divided into two classes. 



(a) Those requiring the treatment of specifically diseased 

 cultivated plants and 



(6) Those I'equiring the removal of conditions suitable to the 

 introduction or spread of any pest. 



The details of these measures are now well known and it is not 

 necessary here to enumerate them, suffice it to say that they involve 

 the employment of a special staff of European officers and Malay 

 subordinates who are invested with the necessary powers, including 

 powers of entry on cultivated land, of removing portions of infected 

 plants for examination and of serving legal notices requiring the 

 carrying out of definite instructions for the treatment or control 



