176 Dr. Heifer's Fourth Report [No. 98. 



that only men of some capital are able to begin such planta- 

 tions^ as they must be able to wait at least seven years before 

 they begin to see the profits of their outlay and industry. 

 Formerly nothing was introduced, and nothing cultivated in 

 the provinces, that did not spontaneously occur, except some 

 fruit trees and some of the most common articles of tropical 

 agriculture. 



Of American productions, tobacco, pine-apples, guavas, and 

 anotta (bixa orellana) are universally diffused. The durian tree 

 which forms the greatest delicacy among the Burmese, was in- 

 troduced from the Malay countries, after this came the man- 

 gosteen from the same quarter. Though arecas are every 

 where planted in the provinces, they are not extensively 

 planted ; and the climate above the 15th degree of latitude 

 seems no more congenial to them. In Mergui Province, since 

 the British occupation, plantations on a large scale, even as 

 much as 10,000 trees, have been laid out by the Burmese, and 

 are augmenting annually. 



Mangosteens are a later introduction, and are attended to by 

 the Burmese with great care in Mergui province. Scarcely 

 one-twentieth part of the trees planted are yet bearing. 



The Burmese would certainly also plant nutmegs and cloves 

 if they could but procure them. Government would therefore 

 confer a great boon on the natives, by establishing in the 

 southern parts a nursery of productions from the Malay and 

 other countries, and divide them gratis to a deserving people. 

 A kind of practical botanical establishment, on a small scale, 

 would be highly useful. 



In this should also be cultivated many of the wild growing 

 trees, deteriorated in their jungly state, gradually to be domes- 

 ticated by cultivation, and then exported to other parts, or laid 

 out in experimental plantations. Such are the various kinds of 

 caouchouc yielding trees, the wild gamboge, the sandal- wood trees, 

 the sassafras, the black varnish, the cajeput-oil tree, &c. &c. 



Many plants from the Malay countries when first intro- 

 duced into Tenasserim, (considering this, as an intermediate 

 stage), could be from hence transplanted to Bengal and Upper 

 India, as it has been generally observed that a gradual ac- 



