THE STRAITS SETTLEMENTS_, &C. 39 



been very favourably judged in the London market. Pepper is 

 planted everywhere on a small scale; tapioca grows especially in 

 Sungei Ujong and the Kegri Senibilan. Experiments with silk 

 worm binding have been made in Perak, and are said to have given 

 good results. Experiments with tobacco, on the other hand, have 

 not been successful. Coco-nuts, betel-nuts, fruits, especially pine- 

 apples, the preserving of which has become a considerable industry, 

 and vegetables are cultivated everywhere and supply chiejfly local 

 requirements. 



In the Straits Settlements, one-third is cultivated, and in the 

 Native States scarcely one two-hundredth part. There is thus an 

 abundance of waste land waiting to be developed by capital and 

 enterprise. The Goverument does its best to encourage this, being 

 convinced of the desirability of obtaining a more permanent form 

 of revenue from agriculture, in view of the uncertainty of tin, the 

 supply of which must some time be exhausted. This has already 

 happened, for instance, in Larut. The income from the opium 

 farm is also dependent upon the tin mines. Land can be obtained 

 everywhere. The first pioneers in the Native States received pieces 

 of land of 1,000 acres (one acre- is about If houws) quite free. 

 Those who came later paid a rent of 20 cents an acre after the 

 second year, for opening up the land, or three dollars per acre at 

 once, which made them owners of the land. The Government can 

 demand 2\ per cent, as export duty upon the produce. 



The population of the English part was in 1891, 512,342 for the 

 three Settlements; for the Native States with Johor 518,644; thus 

 about 1,000,000 in all. 



The area of the three Settlements is 1,310 English square miles, 

 and of the Protected States 35,509 square miles. There are thus 

 in the three Settlements, counting the towns of course, nearly 400, 

 and in the States only 15 inhabitants to the English square mile. 



From this it may be seen that the Malay Peninsula is thinly in- 

 habited, and but little cultivated. By far the largest proportion of 

 this population consists of Chinese, who live at the mines, in the 

 cultivated districts, and especially in the towns along the coasts. 

 Fishing is practised by them on a large scale, and is an important 

 means of existence, and a considerable branch of industry. 



Malays live further away from the towns, and supply, just, as in 

 Deli, the daily necessities of the industrial centres, among others 

 ataps and other building materials for the East coast of Sumatra. 

 Cattle rearing is also in their hands, and is a very considerable in- 



