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Estate Labour, Federated Malay States. 



Coolie Sanitation. 

 The question of the health of coolies on estates, the 

 sanitation of their lines and the prevention or minimising ot 

 malaria, dysentery, and other diseases to which the labour force 

 is specially exposed, is being particularly considered by 



The health of the labour force is one of the most vital 

 matters in the success of rubber-planting, and it therefore 

 becomes as important from an agricultural point of view as the 

 health of the plant or the soil in which it grows. The observations 

 which I have made in visiting estates and in asking the medical 

 men in charge of planting districts all over the Peninsula leads 

 me to the belief that there are two factors which militate against 

 the highest state of health and vigour in estate coolies. 



The first being that a proportion of coolies come to an estate 

 m what a lay-man may call a damaged condition, so that they oo 

 not start with a clean bill of health as regards malaria or otne 

 specific disease, -or possessing an amount of reserve material wnicn 

 fits them to stand well any disease in itself trivial which they ma) 

 contract soon after arriving. 



On one estate I specially observed the fat, healthy and 

 vigorous appearance of the whole of a large force of some 20° 

 *hich had joined the estate some weeks, and the Supenntendent 

 informed me that he attributed it to the fact that these coolies ; haa 

 been for four weeks or more kept in quarantine, resting, supph* 

 with good food, and medically attended. 



The gain of the coolie "starting fair" when he first am** 



hVcomr s or the cost ° f his being *°° ked after and 



A Substitute for Weeding. 

 One of the most important questions in relation to t 

 economical conduct of a rubber estate is that of the weeding- 



