Sot 



Pepper and Gambir before the Tapioca, but of this I have no record. 

 Bad as the stiff clay soil of this area is, the continued cultivation 

 has considerably improved it, and it is an example of what could 

 be done with the waste lands, if natives could be induced to con- 

 tinue cultivating them. 



The causes of this compulsorv rotation of crops are few in num- 

 ber. The spice-trees were abandoned on account of a disease in 

 i860. In those days there were no scientific men, nor any Botanic 

 or Experimental Gardens in the Colony where the causes of such 

 diseases could be investigated and means of attacking them be 

 devised, and so serious a catastrophe is hardly likely to be a cause 

 of abandoning a cultivation again. Liberian Coffee was dropped 

 owing to a fall in price of the product. Pepper and Gambier (always 

 grown together) died out on account of the available land being 

 used up, and the exhaustion of the firewood, which was very extra- 

 vagantly used. Tapioca, which like Gambir is a very exhausting 

 crop, also went off the ground from exhaustion of the soil. Indigo, 

 almost exclusively cultivated in Singapore, was abandoned, mainly 

 on account of the fact that it was necessary to grow it near the 

 town where the dye-works were. The development of the town 

 and demand for building lots practically drove out the dye-houses, 

 which required large supplies of water, only to be had in certain 

 places. 



HISTORY OP THE ECONOMIC PLANTS. 



BEVERAGES. 



Coffee {Arabian). — The earliest mention I have found of the cul- 

 tivation of Coffee in the Malay Peninsula is by Dr. KOENIG in his 

 manuscript account of his voyage in the East in 1779, where he 

 records seeing some in a garden in Malacca. I think, however, it is 

 probable that it was introduced earlier, as it was introduced into 

 Java by VAN HOORNE in 1690, and was probably brought over to 

 Malacca by the Dutch when they first occupied Malacca. NEWBOLD 

 mentions seeing it in Malacca in small quantities in 1833, m his 

 account of Naning, and BALESTIER (Logan's Journal II, p. 141) 

 mentions a few trees growing in Penang in 1848. In these early 

 days, it was chiefly grown in a casual sort of way by natives for 

 personal use and there is no really early record of any attempt to 

 grow it for export, by Europeans till later, when many attempts 

 were made by European planters to cultivate it on a large scale, 

 but being a plant unsuited for this country these attempts were 

 practical failures. It was grown, however, at Waterloo Estate and 

 elsewhere as late as 1902. 



The soil and climate, in fact, is not suitable for this plant, and in 

 1 89 1 {Agricultural Bulletin, No. 1, p. 14), I wrote, "I do not think 

 that Arabian Coffee can ever be successfully cultivated in the Straits 

 Settlements." This statement was strongly criticised and con- 



