74 BRITISH BORNEO. 
Dividends paid by 
In . 
The Deli The Tabak The Amsterdam 
Maatschappi. Maatschappi. Deli Co. 
1882 | 65 percent. ...|~25 per cent. 4. no pemecn= 
1883 | IOI soo | SO i 20 as 
1884 | 77 55 soo POO . yO ) 
1885 | 107 3 a OO i fs | OO i 
1886 | 108 “h bo 0 a eal 
In Sumatra, under Dutch rule, tobacco culture can at pre- 
sent only be carried on in certain districts, where the soil is 
suitable and where the natives are not hostile, and, as most of 
the best land has been taken up, and planters are beginning 
to feel harassed by the stringent regulations and heavy taxa- 
tion of the Dutch Government, both Dutch and German plant- 
ers are turning their attention to British North Borneo, where 
they find the regulations easier, and the authorities most anxi- | 
ous to welcome them, while, owing to the scanty population, 
there is plenty of available land. It is but fair to say that the 
first experiment in North Borneo was made by an English, or 
rather an Anglo-Chinese Company, the China-Sabah Land 
Farming Company, who, on hurriedly selected land in Sanda- 
kan and under the disadvantages which usually attend pio- 
neers in a new country, shipped a crop to England which was 
prenounced by experts in 1886 to equal in quality the best 
Sumatra-grown leaf. Unfortunately, this Company, which had 
wasted its resources on various experiments, instead of con- 
fining itself to tobacco planting, was unable to continue its 
operations, but a Dutch planter from Java, Count GELOES 
bD’ELSLOO, having carefully selected his land in Marudu Bay, 
obtained, in 1887, the high average of $1 per lb. for his trial 
crop at Amsterdam, and, having formed an influential Company 
in Europe, is energetically bringing a large area under culti- 
