82 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [July i, 1889. 
I think it might be as well to give some details 
of planting iu British North Borneo for the benefit 
of hard-working planter- with little capital in Ceyloi 
or el-ewhere, who niav think of pinning C ffee in 
a land of no leaf -d si as", and I shall be much ■hligi- 
if you will publish this in the Herald. The letter I 
wrote, th ugh qujtes correct for the person to whom it 
was writ en, is very misleading, as far as information 
on planting goes, to the general public. No planter 
should com'- here with 1, sa than $7,000. 1 dollar is 2 1/5 
rupee or three shillings at excl aiige; he must also 
be prepared to be in the field all day, and have no 
assistant. A man with that amount, who is willing 
to work hard, can make himself independent in a 
few yea 1 s, but he must rememher that it is no holiday 
work. Men with £3,000 or £4,000 could get their work 
done easily and have as many comforts as they like. 
Forest in British North Borneo extends to the beach, 
there has been no coconut planting by natives except 
here and there, because the cast used to be infested 
with pirates before the days of steamboats. Good land 
can therefore be had within easy distance of a ship- 
ping port. The price of land has been raised to three dol- 
lars per acre, owi: g to the success of the tobacco plant- 
ing and other things. There is no Coffee estate except 
mine, everyone who has seen it however is much 
pleased with it ; there will be a few bushels ripe soon, 
and the trees are full of small berries, and are always 
blossoming. I have 20 acres 2 years old, 12 one year, 
and 50 just planted. A Coffee planter from Java has 
begun felling on the other side of the bay from Kudat. 
Kudat is in Marudu Bay, the most northerly part o f 
Borneo. There is a large acreage of land suitable fos 
Liberiau Coffee, Cocoa and Pepper, and seed and planti 
can be had of all from the Government garden a 
Silam. All one has to do is to apply for land, look 
for it, pay for it to the nearest, Government Officer, 
and start at once. The labourers are native — they 
come from Padas, Brunei and Sarawak. I had a Jot 
of trouble at first, as I did not understand the people, 
nor the seasons of the country, and could not speak 
Malay and a lot of money was wasted : those troubles 
are now overcome, and if any planter comes here, 
I can tell him what to do, and what not to do, and 
save him from buying the knowledge. The Borneans 
are better coolies than the Tamils, they have more 
sense and are more manly, however we will have to 
get Tamils to pick krge crops, as natives will only 
engage for from 4 to 6 months, then go away. They 
do not bring their women and children with them, 
but they work regularly, and have ,.o rows. They 
all carry a cutlass calied a parang, which they ke p 
in a wooden sheath, the blade is about 18 inches long, 
and has a small wooden handle; it is a most useful 
weapon, am, they use it for nearly everything, and 
what is better they buy it with their own mney. 
They have no Oangany, I deal with each man by 
himself. This however is easily done as one man if 
sent to do a bit of work at a distance, does it as 
he is told to do, and returns whenever he is finished. 
In felling I work with my coolies, they first cut the 
small wood then the large, and do not lop, as it is 
not necessary. I stand with then all day, felling and 
making the land ready for lining costs $4'50 per acre. 
The men cut 2,000 lining pegs and finish early. 
I get 60 large holes from them which they finish 
by 2 p. m., some cut more and get paid extra; but 
most of them are pleased with the 60. There is a 
capital tool here for holing, it is a sort of spoon, 
nearly semi-circular, something like the thing grocers 
use to put sugar into scales; it has a handle, made 
of wood by the Oooly who is to U'-e il, and it scoops 
out a good hole in no time. In filling in, the Bonean 
does much better work than *he Tamil ; he does not 
put in n'.Ukh and stones c purpose t<> fill up the 
bole- quickly, Planting here Ins to be done more 
car' fully than at high lands as the sun is very power- 
ful! I always bave to shade the plants with branches 
i , (,(••, and Carrj thn plants in plantain leaves. 
I I .ii gg must be fended round auout, as deer eat 
the young plants: they bite off the tips of plants 
• nd young branches, older trees they do not seem 
to caro about, The coolies make the fence of jungle 
sticks only, which keeps out the deer, they don't 
try to break it. A man does a chain a day, so it is 
not exp^nsiv-:. Weeding must be done twice a month. 
I get two acres each time per man per day ; they 
alto pull off suckers, it costs 30 cents per acre per 
month, I give no contract, but stay with them all day. 
Wages are 25 cents per day, but as the coolies are 
ali men, and I ave no caneauv, it pays well enough. 
Bungalows and lines can be built cheaper here than 
anywhere I know of. This estate is three miles from 
Ku'at a shipping port, so I can put my crop on 
board ship for the same price as I used to put it 
into carts on the Government road in Ceylon, and 
thus save the cart hire of 23 miles and railway 
carriage of 90. Bice is cheap here, but I supply 
the coolies with nothing. I pay them every second 
Saturday instead. When I came here first, we were 
almost out of tho world, now we have four steamers 
a mon':h. One of the steamers goes to Hongkong, 
it sai s from Singapore, touches here and at Sandakan, 
and then goes on to Hongkong. We get fowls, sheep, 
&c, from there cheap, and if one requires a 
change and has not much time to spare, the trip 
from here to Hongkong and back only requires 
twenty days including a stoppage of four days at 
Hongkong. There is a fairly good breed of cattle 
here, and they are not dear. Those who like shoot- 
ing can get lots of it. There are Sambur deer, red 
deer, pigs, wild cattle, elephants, beai s, aligators, anp 
biros of all kinds. There is a mountain here called 
Kinabalu, which is 14,000 feet high, it is about 40 
milts from the bottom of this bay, people who have 
been there say there is a large extent of fine land 
suitable for Arabian Coffee, Tea, and Cinchona, jail 
around it, at an elevation of from 4,000 feet and 
upwards. I have not been to see it but am going soon. 
Yours truly, 
P. Christian. 
Kudat, 17th January, 1889. 
COCONUT CULTIVATION. 
Fumigation. 
On reading the Observer, I learnt for the first time 
that the great apostle of smoke for coconut trees has 
left behind him many followers, and that their number 
is increasing. My excuse for my ignorance of what is 
going on around me, and in a branch of my profession, 
is that I am to a great extent a hermit. My contact 
with the shining lights amongst Coconut Planters is 
not frequent, and is almost always through the Press. 
Beside-, lam a resident in a sleepy hollow, where Coco- 
nut Pi nters are so weighed down by leaf-disease, 
a, hard, dry soil overlring a slab-rock formation, and a 
pecul ar su-ceptibility of their trees to annual drought, 
vbat they are unequal even to the exertion of smoking 
their trees. Those living in a kind of Israelitish camp 
umidst plague-s'.ricki-n Egypt — where they enjoy a 
special immunity from plagues, and having as owners of 
properties distinguished sons of the soil whose names 
are as household words along the length and across the 
breadth of the Island, and who have for their leader 
a veteran and very progressive Planter, and with so 
fertile a soil that nails sown in it soon grow into 
Alavangus — can well indulge in the luxury of "plough- 
iugs annual and oftener " for their coconut plantations, 
with bones applied ad lib., and last, though not least, 
a goo I smoke. 
I would not have felt myself called upon to discuss 
this question, but for a reference to me in the com- 
munication in question, where my opinion on the sub- 
jrctis mysteriously hinted at, and not fully set forth 
and discussed. I am told that it would bave been easier 
tor me to deny that smoke did a,ny good to Ooconut 
trees, than to say ii may ben i- fit the in indirectly. Do'iu - 
less a simple and bare denial would have been ■ asier, 
but I avoid dogmatising. I always prefer discussing 
a question in all its bearings, and setting forth the pros 
and cons fairly. That is more likely to convince a 
sceptic than a mere denial, and is also the proper way 
to approach a scientific question. " Old Planter '' has 
been long before the public as a teacher of Agri- 
cultural Science, but that his teachings do not meet 
