29$ 



I was the more attracted to research in this direction by reading 

 a statement of an erroneous and misleading nature made by Dr. 

 WILLIS, Director of the Botanic Gardens in Ceylon, in a report re- 

 cently published on the agriculture of the Federated Malay States, 

 it may be stated that Dr. Willis was invited by the present Resi- 

 dent-General of the Native States to visit the Malay Peninsula and 

 Java, and to write a report on the agriculture ; unfortunately he was 

 unable to visit the Botanic Gardens in Singapore for more than an 

 hour or two on two evenings and consequently was unable to form 

 any idea of the working of this establishment or to learn what had 

 been done by its means for the development of agriculture in the 

 Native States as well as the Colony for the past thirty years, and 

 thus he gives the Department scant credit for its work, which, as 

 will be seen, has been the basis of the whole of the agriculture of 

 the Peninsula and the mainspring of its development to the present 

 day. . 



Dr. WILLIS' statement above referred to runs as follows : — 



" The majority of the crops at present cultivated in the Malay 

 " States owe their introduction to private enterprise, but rubber was 

 " introduced into the Government Gardens at Kuala Kangsar and a 

 " number of things have come through the Botanic Gardens of Singa- 

 " pore and Penang in the Straits Settlements. Coffee, I believe, is 

 " one of those introductions and the spread of rubber is largely due 

 " to the exertions of Mr. RIDLEY'S Department." 



This is all he says about the work done for the Federated Malay 

 Sates by the Botanic Gardens of the Colony. The fiction as to the 

 introduction of Para Rubber into Perak by the Government of Perak, 

 more implied than definitely stated in the report, was exposed in 

 one of the Agricultural Bulletins, Straits Settlements and Federated 

 Malay States, some time back. The fact that the Colonial Gardens 

 have for thirty years supplied the Federated Malay States with plants 

 and seeds, and have been constantly utilized by their Government 

 officials and planters in the same way as those of the Colony, 

 though the Federated Malay States have never contributed a cent 

 towards the expenses of the Gardens, is entirely ignored. 



As, therefore, there seems to be so much ignorance as to the work 

 done by the Botanic Gardens, and their history, a short account of 

 the development of agriculture in the Malay Peninsula, as far as the 

 facts are at present procurable, may not be out of place in the 

 Bulletin. The story is necessarily incomplete, for very few records 

 of what was done in Singapore, Malacca and Penang in the early 

 days have been preserved. If any reports or statements on the 

 subject were ever written, they were either not printed at all, or if 

 printed no copies remain in Singapore, at least, at the present day. 

 The Singapore Library contains barely anything except an incom- 

 plete but valuable set of local newspapers and Logan's Journal, 

 printed between the years 1822 and 1880. The archives also of 

 the Singapore Gardens, between 1875 and 1888, are very incom- 

 plete. I have, therefore, merely recorded such facts of interest as 



