TOBACCO 26l 



which the soil is resting, as is usual in Europe, there is 

 no question here. The division according to the seasons 

 is as follows : 



January-May: Sawah (wet rice fields). 



June-October: Sawah (w>et rice fiel'ds). 



November-March: Sawah (wet rice fields). 



April-July : Preparation of the soil. 



August-December : Tobacco. 



The real cause of the favourable influence on the 

 fertility of the soil of the wet dee cultivation (sawahs) 

 has never been quite clear. It is true tHat the water 

 conveys large quantities of plant food to the rice fields 

 in the slime which it carries with it, and much more 

 is dissolved in the water itself; but, on the other 

 hand, the water, running from one estate to the other 

 before it finally reaches the sea, also carries off large 

 quantities of plant food from the sawahs, which leaves 

 the balance rather in doubt. Of greater importance 

 probably is the fact that through the water remaining 

 stagnant on the sawahs it gets heated to such an extent 

 by the tropical sun that the processes of dissolution in 

 the soil are thereby much accelerated. And, finally, it 

 is far from imaginary that the biological processes in 

 the soil may be favourably affected by the supply of 

 water. Whatever may be the cause of the favourable 

 influence on the soil of the wet sawah cultivation, with- 

 out it the enormously intensive use of the land in the 

 Vorstenlanden would be impossible. Now the Vorsten- 

 landen have from the remotest Hindoo times been sub- 

 jected to intensive cultivation, and the Javanese coolie 

 from the Vorstenlanden, having from one generation to 

 another worked with wet sawahs, has become naturally 

 a born- waterworks engineer. The irrigation works 

 established by the natives are indeed admirable, but they 

 are, of course, capable of enormous improvement and 

 moire rational construction at the hands of European 

 technical engineers. In this respect the tobacco culti- 

 vation in the Vorstenlanden has of late years made 

 enormous progress. As an illustration we may mention 

 the magnificent " van der Wyck aqueduct," which has 

 a water capacity of 300 cubic metres per minute and a 



