5»6 



ratals, with the result that for the last 47-years they have been ex- 

 tremely remiss regarding padi planting. Unless there is strong 

 legislation and a strong hand to enforce it, the cultivation of padi 

 will never succeed. 



I beg to point out to Your Highness and the Resident-General 

 that Siam and Rangoon resemble the parents, and the countries of 

 the Malays the children. If the child does not in some degree help 

 his parents he is accounted absolutely wicked. It avails nothing 

 though he be ten times as wealthy and great. 



Your Highness who has reigned for five years, and Your Honour, 

 who for ten years, as Resident and Resident-General, has caused 

 English justice and prosperity to prevail in Selangor, will be con- 

 ferring a great benefit upon the people by a consideration of the 

 rice question. I ask then that Your Majesty and the Resident- 

 General will settle the method of rice cultivation and enforce it 

 upon the Malays by a new law, providing penalties and fines for 

 evasion. 



I trust that my dissertation will be excused. I have not spoken 

 for the mere sake of giving my history, but because in my time the 

 price of rice has risen from $1.50 to §5.60, more than three times 

 as much. For the last three or four years the price has been steadily 

 rising. This year I have suffered heavily, for last year when I had 

 got my money from the office and paid off my debts for food there 

 still remained $20 or $30 ; this year only Si or §2 are left over. 

 Every kind of necessary has risen in price, and the trouble and 

 anxiety resulting therefrom have emboldened me to approach you 

 on this subject. 



RAJA BOT. 



Klang, 22nd August, 1Q02. 



THE CULTIVATION OP ORCHIDS FOR 

 AMATEURS 



Almost everybody that has a garden in this Colony tries to grow 

 a few orchids, but the success attained in the majority of cases, is 

 bv no means commensurate to the interest and energy shown. Dis- 

 appointment is often felt when the plants do grow and come into 

 flower to find that they are small and insignificant. This is only 

 what is to be expected considering that most of those grown are 

 local species of which not one in ten kinds have large showy flowers. 

 To obtain these it is necessary to go farther afield, and having found 

 out the good things, and how to successfully grow them, to increase 

 their number in preference to insignificant species that are mainly 

 of interest to botanist. To keep the majority of Orchids alive for 

 a considerable time is by no means difficult, but to successfully grow 

 and flower them is quite another matter. Few plants are in fact 

 more difficult to kill outright, but to grow them well requires a cer- 

 tain amount of knowledge of their requirements and a good deal of 

 patience and perseverance. Even when this is given, and the most 

 done that can be done, the result is sometimes far from satisfactory 



