136 corn. — Progress of CullivutiQX. 



and when no more capital can be advantageously cm- 

 ployed on the land, the probability is that wajjes and 

 profits will be low, and rents high ; and as 5 lie cost 

 of cultivation compared with produce, owing" to the 

 general fertility of the soil here, is now, and is likely 

 to be in future, small ; SO rents" will bear a pretty 

 ef|oal proportion lo the ii it Tease of produce* derived 

 from the improvement the land naturally recede* 

 from regular cultivation alone, 



ft is necessary to attend in an investigation of 

 this kind, to the di>lm< rtion which exists belwixt dry 

 and wet hud : one which is peculiar to those Kasteni 

 countries where rice ronstilufes the principal vegeta- 

 ble food of the people. There, although as before 

 noticed, some kinds of that gram will grow on ground 

 not exposed to be flooded, still in a country with a 

 limited territory and an increasiu»- pi>pu!ation. such 

 cultivation cannot be depended ptl for a constant sup- 

 ply of ^rain ; while it generally involves the serious 

 objection to its utility, that under it, laud is allowed 

 one, two, or three years t«i recover itself. W liether 

 hereafter the profits of cultivation will admit of the 

 plough being applied to dr\ land with the view to a 

 rice crop, seems extremely doubtful. 



With few exceptions, lite Malays decline to cultivate 

 dry laud permanently, unless it he conjoint <1 with 

 flooded rice-laiid. In the latter case, tlie dn laud 

 forms the campon^ or garden with the owner's house 

 in the centre, and in h tu |>lauts eoeoannts, plantains, 

 and other fruit trees; Hitfar-« at ic, indigo .tobacco, pulses, 

 and sweet potatoes. The proportions in which these 

 two descriptions of land have Uen occupied may he 

 about one of dry to ten of wet. It is the want of 

 flooded rice-land which is now drawing away to Pro- 

 vince Wellesley many of our Penang Malays, and 

 probably the remaining quantity may serve to meet 



