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land which has had time to recover by fallow or rotation of crops. 

 (b) That it is not tolerant of shade, (c) That it must be planted in 

 fairly large areas to minimize the depredations of pests, {d) That 

 planting has to be timed to catch the rains, (e) That the yield to be 

 obtained under the best of conditions could be estimated at 300 

 gantangs of padi per acre — i.e., approximately, 150 gantangs of rice, 

 which on the basis of six gantangs of rice per cooly per month 

 worked out to the index of one cooly consuming the produce of 

 ^alf acre of land. He stated that he had an open mind about the 

 matter but that any success would he thought be largely dependent 

 on the extent of co-operative effort. Turning to the question of wet 

 rice he could not express optimism concerning the results to be 

 obtained from planting " wet-rice " in swamps. He stated that the 

 only way to make swamps produce a satisfactory crop was to make 

 conditions such that the land might be .^wanip no more. He showed 

 how certain areas in this country produced rice in quantity per acre 

 second only to Spain and indicated the ways by which production 

 could be still further increased. 



Another speaker remarked that fruit cultivation on estates 

 was difficult, owing to the theft of fruits by coolies when the fruits 

 came to maturity. 



The Chairman said that Mr. Spring's paper was prepared in 

 order to get the views of planters as to whether it would be possible 

 to improve conditions, but as so few planters were present, he 

 did not think it was any use continuing the discussion. He would 

 therefore call upon Mr. R. W. Munro to read his paper on " Liberian 

 Coffee." 



