138 



THE FOOD-CROPS OF THE MALAY PENINSULA AND 



SOME THOUGHTS ARISING OUT OF A REVIEW 



OP THEM. 



By I. H. BURKILL, M.A., F.L.S. 



(Director of Gardens, S.8.). 



According to trade statistics, the Malay Peninsula took fi'om 

 abroad for feeding itself in the year 1915 : 



Cereals, costing $23,471,049 



Sugar, costing ... ... ... 5,789,951 



Bean seed, and the like, costing ... 1,439,278 



Vegetables, costing ... ... ... 1,352,128 



Fi-uits, costing 1,274,163 



Condiments of native food, costing... 1,227,455 



paying the bills for these out of income from rubber, copra, sago, 



tapioca, and pine-apples. 



I intend to use the privilege of holding your attention by 

 speaking of these foods which we buy in such large quantities from 

 outside the Peninsula : I shall touch on cereals first, commencing 

 with rice. 



Rice. 



The year 1915 saw nearly fifty-two million dollars worth of rice 

 enter oul* ports, and we kept twenty millions worth to feed ourselves. 

 It came from Rangoon, Saigon and Bangkok chiefly. Tliat which 

 came from Rangoon was the overflow production of a population of 

 about one soul to an acre of paddy : it is a gi"Owing population, 

 and it has been calculated that in fifty years it will eat up 

 its own produce, or in less than fifty years if the accepted 

 plan of cropping should be changed. The same growth of 

 population is occurring in Indo-China and Siam, and will have a 

 similar result. Java has already filled up in a wonderful way, and 

 has greatly changed its crops, with the result that it no longer sends 

 overseas I'ice in the same way as formerly. The Philippine Islands 

 have ceased to export and import. These changes are worth 

 thinking over ; and the more one thinks the more important does 

 rice growing appear to be in the Malay Peninsula. 



Rice, unfortunately, pays comparatively poorly : so that officers 

 charged with the duty of insuring its extension are confronted with 

 great difficulties. Rice cultivation in the East is, at it were, the 

 handmaid of all other cultivation — without rice the others could 

 not exist — and it is paid in the manner of handmaids. 



I propose to pass quickly along the ends of the avenues leading 

 from the present position to greater jDrofits, but merely glancing 

 down them. 



