May i, 1890 ] 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
793 
TEOPICAL AGEICULTUEE IN PEEAK: 
EICE — PEPPEE — COFFEE — TEA. 
The prospects of the present rice crop are very hope, 
fu), and there are a good many more fields tinder cul- 
tivation than usual, a number that have been ljing 
fallow for years having been planted up, 
The natives are beginning to realize the advantages 
the district affords for the cultivation of pepper, and 
applications for land under the Special Regulations 
are now almost daily received. During the year 196 
aores have been allotted, though, ow.ogto unavoidable 
delay in the demarcation, agreements have only been 
issued for a few blocks. It is to be regretted that the 
Perak Malays understand so little about pepper planting 
though they will have opportunities of learning some- 
thing of it from the Banjer and Menangkabau Malays, 
who are now coming into the district with the inten- 
tion of opening up pepper land. Mr. Dock's plantation 
at Guuong Pondok and Syed Mufa's at Passir Pan. 
jang have both been very successful so far, and the 
sudden rush for pepper land is no doubt attributable 
to this._ As ye'-, the majority of natives have a very 
vague idea as to the cost of opening up a pepper plan- 
tation, and I have several times received appl'cat ions 
for a hundred acres from people who have not coai- 
maud of sufficient labour or capital to open up two. 
Messrs. Huttenbach and Thompson Low examined 
the land along the northern side of the Taiping- 
Kuala Kangsa road with a view to selecting 2,500 
acres as part of Mr. Huttenbach's agricultural con- 
cession. They pronounced the soil to be superior to 
any they had seen in other parts of Perak. 
Ooffee planting also bids fair to prove a success. 
The estate atKamuning is doing well and Mr. Thomas 
Fraser, manager of the Waterloo E-tate, whose long 
experience of coffee planting in Coy Ion and several 
years' experience in Perak, enable him to offer a valu- 
able opinion, writes as follows: — 
"The cultivation of coffee promises well, and, where 
land is judiciously selected and opened, it cannot fail, 
in my opinion, to bo a success, w ith such liberal term, 
as the Government is now offering to the public to 
take up and cultivate land with coffee Arabica. There 
should, when these terms are better known, be a very 
considerable demand for land." 
Mr. Frsser has kindly furnished me with the following 
statement of the acreage of Waterloo estate now under 
cultivation : — 
Old coffee ... ... ... 70 acres. 
Young coffoe, one to two years old 53 „ 
Do planted this season 103 „ 
Total int Ooffee ... 226 „ 
Grass planted this season ... 6 „ 
Laud being opened for coffee ... 68 „ 
To be in cultivation this year ... 300 
The expement at he Hermitage estate of leasing 
at a nominal reat, seven acres of tea trees to four 
Chinamen, for a year, resulted satisfactorily. Three 
qualities of tea were produced. The first, styled Lun 
Fong Cha, was valued by the Superintendent of Plan- 
tations at lOdperlb. ; the seoond, Pak Cha, at 9d or 
lOd, and the third. Nun Chum Cha, was reported to he 
of hotter quality than that sold looally at 25 cents for 
less than an ounce. 
The " Cicely" tea estate is also to be leased to some 
Chinese, but there had been delay in preparing the 
title deeds, and they have not yet taken the estate over. 
There is, however, nothing to prevent them doing so 
now, as their objection to tbe duty olause, which was 
the reason of the delay, has now been withdrawn. 
During the year 2,982 titles for agricultural lots 
were issued, the total acreage of land alienated being 
3775 acres. — Perak Government Gazette. 
* 
Seedling Suxjab-canb.— The last number of Garden 
Field, and, Forest (Denier ara), contains an interesting 
account of six seedling varieties raised at the Dodd's 
Botanical Station, Barbados. These were selected from 
a lot of natural solf-sown seedlings, discovered in 
Barbados some two years sinoe. They are spoken of 
as very promising. The seeds take about seven days 
to gennintuto.— -Gardeners' Chronicle. 
100 
COCONUT PEODUCTS. 
One hears and reads a good deal about the " pushing " 
of Ceylon Tea, but very little, if anything, about a 
similar operation in connection with Coconuts. A stir 
was made a few years ago about " pushing " Cinnamon ; 
and the simple and obvious means to the end was, 
after much controversy, adopted of holding more fre- 
quent sales. The idea was that the frequency of 
auctions in London — the world's great emporium of 
commerce still, in spite of competition without and 
dissension within — would serve as an advertisement of 
the spice, and popularise it as a flavouring substance of 
undoubted wholesomeness. One should have thoueht 
that no one had any right to interfere with a Proprie- 
tor's choice of times and seasons for the sale of his 
produce. It turned nut to be otherwise. The greatest 
opposition was manifested by the magnates of Mincing 
Lane to any departure from quarterly sales. The inter- 
ests of buyers and sellers are not precisely idantical— ■ 
the one trying to pay the least he could, and the other 
to get the most he could. The producers at first exhi. 
bited firmness enough to tell the buyers that if they 
did not care to buy at the monthly sales, they might 
stay away ; hut the spice would be offered thriee a 
quarter. A combination to prevent bidding altogether 
by a few leading Brokers in the Lane failed, but the 
combination was stiong enough to prevent any appreci- 
able rise in prices at the sales. That a continuation in 
the policy of more frequent sales would have led to 
the results aimed at is, of course, onlv asurmige; but 
all reason pointed to the probability of success. But in 
a short time the producers of Cinnamon yielded to the 
pressure brought to bear on t'teni the more confident 
few being unwilling to risk the boycotting of their 
produce in presence of the tendency to yield of the 
vacillating many. So, the idea of more frequent sales 
was knocked on the head, and Cinnamon has reverted 
to tbe comfortable antediluvian practice of quirterly 
sales, while other produce, including every spice in 
creation save that which has given its name to the 
Spicy Island, is so'd once a week ! It is not to be 
expected from people who yielded in so small a matter, 
that they would be able to carry out a more ambitious 
project, such as the engagement of a travelling Agent 
to bring the producer and tbe consumer nearer each 
other, an; thus save to both, in reasonab'e proportion?, 
the protits of middlemen. Cinnamon continues, as a 
consequence, to fetch disappointing prices. 
We are not aware whether even so feeble an attempt 
as the foregoing has ever been made to push the sale of 
the products of the Coconut palm. If there has been 
any project, it neither originated with, nor was worked 
by, the producer. The Merchant — the local buyer of 
the raw products — may have done what in him lay, 
either alone or by combination, to make the Oil, tho 
Nuts and the Fibre better known, and to open markets 
for them ; but the Planter has been content to grow 
the product and get what he could for it oa the spot. 
The difference between the two industries, which has 
led to such widely different proceedings, is that Tea 
planting is mainly in the hands of Europeans, and 
Coconut planting in the hands of Oeylonese. The 
former bring to bear on their work, not only a larger 
share of inherited energy and enterprise, but a more 
intimate acquaintance with the commercial methods 
which have earned for Englishmen the distinguishing 
appellation of " the nation of shopkeepers." One, and 
perhaps the maiu, explanation of the bickwardness of 
theCeylonese in this respeot, is the system of eduoation 
which has obtained here from the date of the British 
ocoupation, if not from before. The system has made 
the energies of the people run in particular grooves, 
and has rendered departure from them distasteful, if 
not impossible. There is nothing easier than for 
" reformers " to declaim on the backwardness of the 
Oeylonese in trade, commerce, manufactures and indus- 
trial pursuits. It occurs to few to find the explanation of 
it in the faulty system of education, and to seek to 
promote measures for industrial and technical teaching. 
The beginning of the remedy is to be found there, just 
as the remedy for destitution and disease among 
