9 



and it seems utter wantonness to destroy it. But it must be done, 

 or there will be no regular crop during the next season. 

 Superintendence. — This is the most important, element of successful, 

 cotton planting, and a superbundance of all the others would be of 

 little avail if a deficiency existed in this particular. The Anglo- 

 Americans could never have availed themselves as they have done 

 of the necessity for renewing the plants annually, if they had not 

 been able to bring into action a body of intelligent planters, to 

 watch the changing of the seed, year by year, until the staple at- 

 tained the closest approach to perfection. It is well known also 

 that the efforts of the East India Company to improve the general 

 produce of Hindoostan, carried on through a long series of years, 

 without regard to expense, -have been rendered abortive by the 

 absolute impossibilitv of providing intelligent superintendents lor 

 such an immense e xtent of rotlon lands. The model plantations 

 they established under American and European superintendence, 

 produced cotton equal to the best samples of the Southern States 

 of America, but the improvement went no farther. The native 

 cultivators would almost as readily change their religion as adopt a 

 different mode of culture from that followed by their forefathers, and 

 the general crop continues to be the same description of rubbish as 

 before, which scarcely pays the freight to Europe. It remains to 

 be seen whether the Chinese will shew the same readiness in adopt- 

 ing European improvements in this instance that they have evinced 

 in others. But should the culture be successfully introduced here, 

 and the Chinese display their usual spirit of imitation, improvement 

 would soon spread to Sumatra and Borneo, in fact over the entire 

 Archipelago, 



The experiment can now be carried on more favourably than on 

 the former occasion, when the European inhabitants all resided in 

 the town and vicinity, onlv visiting their country plantations oc- 

 casionally. Now many reside permanently in the interior, and can 

 therefore give daily attention to the experiment. At Penang, also, 

 where much land has been cleared for sugar plantations, the cul- 

 tivation of which has in some instances been abandoned, the pro- 

 prietors may follow the example of the West Indian planters by 

 converting their abandoned estates into cotton plantations. 



G. W. E. 



Appendix-. 



Extract from Col. Low's Dissertation on the Soil and Agriculture 

 of Penang and Province Wellesley : — 



Cotton has never been extensively cultivated at this settlement. 

 It has, however, been long introduced, and the staple of one of 

 the varieties now cultivated, but whence obtained cannot be easily 

 ascertained — is of a very superior quality. It thrives luxuriantly on 

 the light as well as the stiff soils, and equally well on the hills, as 

 in the valley. The chief obstacles to the cultivation are, the price 

 ot labour, and the sudden vicissitudes of climate from dry to wet, 

 the latter being apt to injure the pod. 



