AGRICULTURAL BULLETIN 



OF THE 



STRAITS 



AND 



FEDERATED MALA/ STATES. 



No. 8.] MARCH, 1910. [Vol. IX 



TILLAGE OF SOIL. 



In our last two numbers we published two cjrtidcs on Tilled and 

 Untilled Soils, which may be taken as the case for clean weeding'. 

 The authors show the action of the grass toxins upon trees, and 

 the injury caused by them. 



There is, however, the other side of the question to be considered, 

 that is to say, the actual loss of the ground and risk to the trees due 

 to the excessive denudation by rain on bare slopes. 



It must be remembered that the articles reprinted deal only with 

 the conditions that obtained in England, and that the meteorological 

 conditions there are entirely different from those ot the tropical rain 

 forest region where we have our plantations. 



The amount of denudation, except in a few exceptional spots, in 

 England is comparatively small. That in the tropics excessively 

 great, especially on cleared slopes. 



I have seen pineapple plants in the Singapore pinefields, planted 

 originally on ground level not more than three years previously 

 standing on pillars of earth a foot above the ground level as it then 

 was, showing that the soil level had been cut down a foot all over 

 this ground. Though this was perhaps an exceptional amount of 

 denudation, observations on bare ground after a heavy rain will show 

 that under better circumstances the loss of soil is extremely heavy on 

 paths even if flat or nearly so, stones are seen pushed up so to say 

 above the level, and roots of trees are constantly coming to the sur- 

 face, all of which were buried previously some inches below the soil. 

 On steep slopes it is worse. Near Balik Pulau, in Penang, and again 

 on Bukit Mertaiam, native planters were allowed to clear the forest for 



