August, 1909. j 



159 



Miscellaneous. 



THE CHINESE METHOD OF ROTA- 

 TION OF CROPS AND RECLAMATION 

 OF LALANG LAND. 



By Dr. Lim Boon Hbng. 



(From the Agricultural Bulletin 

 of the Straits & F. M. S., Vol. VII., 



10th October, 1908.) 

 The most conspicuous evidence of the 

 folly of the Government leasing of agri- 

 cultural land in the Straits Settlements, 

 is the existence of enormous tracts of 

 valuable land, now overgrown with la- 

 lang (Imperata cylindrica) and conse- 

 quently thrown back upon the Govern- 

 ment as a practically valueless asset. 

 It generally takes about ten years for 

 such land to be covered with good 

 secondary forest growth. Had the 

 Government stipulated that every acre 

 of land should be replanted with some 

 permanent trees, or had they made the 

 conditions of the lease such that it would 

 be more profitable to cultivate such land 

 than abandon it and take up new virgin 

 jungle, we might have had all these 

 waste areas beautifully afforested or at 

 least yielding some returns. Fortunately 

 since the cultivation of Para Rubber has 

 proved to Oe a success, even with tapioca 

 as a catch crop — thanks to the pioneer 

 work of Mr. Tan Chay Yan at Bukit 

 Asahan — now the Malacca Rubber Plant- 

 ations Limited, the Government or the 

 officials of the land office, are quite 

 awake as to the necessity of preventing 

 tapioca and other lands going into waste 

 under lalang. 



It may therefore be of considerable 

 importance to planters to know that 

 Chinese vegetable growers practise an 

 economical method of reclaiming lalang 

 land. In discussing this, it may be inter- 

 esting also to note in passing their sys- 

 tem of manuring, for the lalang is not 

 merely weeded out but is also choked 

 out by a careful rotation of valuable 

 crops. As a rule, it costs about twenty 

 dollars at least to clear one acre of lalang. 

 The Chinese, who pay their farm hands 

 at $12-$15 a month, manage to get good 

 returns within two years by reclaiming 

 lalang land, and to convert it into a use- 

 ful vegetable garden. 



The fact that this system has succeeded 

 so well in Singapore, where the soil is 

 generally poor, argues that it should be 

 more successful, wherever the soil is 

 more fertile. It must be admitted that 

 without the use of farm-yard or human 

 manure this system cannot succeed very 

 well. 



The essence of it may be explained in 

 a few lines. The stems of the lalang are 

 exposed by hoeing or deep ploughing, 



and removed by the rake and burned. 

 The soil has to be turned up two or three 

 times if necessary to remove the weed 

 completely. 



At the same time, the aid of nature 

 is called in. Rapidly growing plants are 

 planted at once in carefully manured 

 beds. A struggle for existence is thus 

 artificially introduced, and within three 

 months or so, the patch of waste land is 

 covered with green vegetables. The 

 transformation is very impressive, but 

 the steps require to be seen. The change 

 affords a striking object lesson of the im- 

 portance and value as well as feasibility 

 of permanent cultivation of the soil. 



But unfortunately in Singapore, culti- 

 vation of the soil is not profitable unless 

 " night-soil" is utilised. Human excreta 

 constitute the most efficient and at the 

 same time the cheapest manure. The 

 Municipal authorities evidently do not 

 take the slightest interest in the utili- 

 sation of this refuse. They proposed an 

 extensive scheme of casting it out to sea, 

 and dumping it all into the deep ten 

 miles off Singapore. Surely, when this 

 was proposed, neither the Engineer nor 

 the Medical Health Officer had in mind 

 the state of vegetable cultivation in the 

 Colony. The bulk of our population 

 consists of people, whose food is princi- 

 pally a mixture of rice and vegetables. 

 Without the night-soil removed from 

 town the numberless vegetable gardens 

 in the country must be abandoned. The 

 result will inevitably be that vegetables 

 will be grown in Johore and elsewhere— 

 Rhio perhaps, and if there is danger in 

 the use of such matter, the risks of in- 

 fection will be increased, since our 

 sanitary authorities cannot possibly 

 control these foreign growers. It seems 

 to us that the most useful method of 

 disposal of excreta for this Colony — in 

 view of the urgent needs of vegetable 

 growers— is some scientific means of 

 treating the manure in different depots 

 in the country and then distributing it 

 to the gardens. The risks of this form 

 of manure carrying infection are not 

 great, inasmuch as the night-soil is 

 thoroughly fermented before it is put to 

 the soil. One can easily conceive of its 

 utilization in an appropriate manner 

 without offending the taste of even the 

 most fastidious. 



Without some good manure, it is not 

 easy to raise plants on such exhausted 

 soil as forms the habitat of lalang as a 

 rule. This much-maligned grass is in our 

 opinion a friend to man in disguise. 

 When the soil is composed principally 

 of clay — and the surface humus has 

 been all washed away, there are very 

 few plants that can grow on it. But 

 such land is sooner or later invaded by 



