September i, 1887.! THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
169 
Ficalho also will be pleased to secure an English 
or Frenoh edition of the Coloquios,* when he is 
about to publish the new critical edition of them 
which we are expecting with great satisfaction. 
PLANTING IN NETHEELANDS INDIA. 
(Translated for the Straits Times.) 
The steady rise in the price of coffee witli every 
prospect of its continuance at a high figure for many 
a year to come, has brought about a revival of 
plantation enterprise in Java, so says the Sourabaya 
Courant, The Government has in consequence been 
overwhelmed, as it were, with applications for waste 
laud. Coffee planting has now become the rage 
among people dazzled by the excessively high prices 
ruling at late for that article. Owners of extensive 
estates have applied to Government for large areas of 
land to be tacked on to their plantations. People 
who have hitherto fought shy of coffee, can now be 
easily persuaded to invest thoir money in growing 
the article. In the province of Kedirie, Europeans 
havo been going about the villages and mountains in 
quest of land suitable for coffee cultivation. 
Tea growing in Java stands far behind enter- 
prise in the same direction in Ceylon. This 
branch of industry in Java is in private 
hands, and as such cannot be expected to find 
favour from Government Officials who set store 
by discouraging private enterprise in every way. 
For many years, tea growing in the Preanger Be- 
gencies was systematically counteracted, lest it 
should interfere with the compulsory Government 
coffee cultivation. Planters in Java far from being 
aided and backed by the State, find themselves 
hampered and interfered with by it at every turn. 
The pressure of taxation on them is heavy indeed. 
They have to pay assessment, quit rent, coolies' 
poll tax, license tax, horse tax, also high freight 
rates on Government railways and export duties. 
The fiscal screw is turned pretty tight in Nether- 
lands India, and effectually checks the steady growth 
of planting enterprise. Had the Government favoured 
the development of the productive resources of Java 
and Sumatra in the past, these islands would have 
outstripped Ceylon in prosperity. 
In Java, a planter has been experimenting with 
grafting Arabian coffee on the Liberian variety. 
At the outsot, the experiments proved successful 
save in one respect. The gentleman in question 
hoped to secure plants proof against leaf disease, 
but found himself disappointed. The grafts grew 
very well on the Liberian stocks. But leaf dis- 
ease did not spare them. Soon, they were as 
severely stricken as the ordinary coffee trees. 
In many parts of Java, the population reaches 
the same density as in Belgium. Some districts 
are actually over-populated. No wonder that 
the people under such circumstances readily take 
to emigrating to Deli to work as coolies on the 
tobacco estates there. The Government docs not 
favour this kind of emigration in the least, from 
apprehension lest the illusions of the immigrants 
should prove greater than the reality offers. Yet 
the poorer Javaneso would be undoubtedly better 
off there, than in living in starvation in their 
homes. Many portions of the Archipelago now ne- 
glected would be materially advantaged by a regular 
supply of labour from Java. 
The Java Government coffee crop this year is 
estimUcd at under half a million of piculs. The 
' An English translation has, we aro glad to way. al- 
ready been undertaken by a lady in London under tlie 
direction of Col. Yale, which IS to bo annotated bv 
Prof. Hall. Wo reprint Kliicklgor's article. Homo of 
llm IdiOtns in which are peculiar, us affording a 
cunou8 glimpse of lifo in Portuguese India, when 
Portugal was m llu j;lory.— Lu. 
1 yield is expected to fall below four hundred thou- 
sand piculs. Private estates too show the same 
shortcoming. All over the island the coffee crop 
has proved short on private estates as well. On 
the west coast of Sumatra the amount of avail- 
able coffee has turned out 60 miserably small 
that it is intended to make up for the deficiency 
by eking out the stock in hand with Preanger 
coffee, which has beans large enough to admit of 
passing muster for Sumatra coffee. These signs 
of the times betoken evidently that Government 
coffee cultivation has seen its best days in Java 
and Sumatra. 
The Batavia Nieuiosblad has been inviting in- 
formation for publication in its columns on the 
wubject of coconut pearls. A correspondent in 
reply states that he had often seen these con- 
cretions in Banda and Amboyna. An officer at 
one of these places has a pearl of this kind of 
large size. The wife of a native headman at 
Amboyna wears one set in a ring. It is said that 
similar concretions are found in other kinds of fruit. 
They are often found in the maws of fishes. The 
natives at these places call the pearls by the 
name of Mastieka. They are reputed to bring 
their possessor luck in gambling. 
In the district of Berabei in S. E. Borneo, a 
planter named Salomonsen has set about tobacco 
growing. His success seems assured. Large capital, 
that mighty factor, is at his command. Land in 
that district suits this kind of cultivation admir- 
ably ; and long stretches of it are now lying waste. 
Abundance of labour on the spot is another ad- 
vantage. Indigo and pepper cultivation is said to 
suit the local environment. But in Holland there 
is no inclination to turn these extensive tracts 
of fertile land to any profitable account, though 
the country only needs capital and industrial enter- 
prise to become a second Deli. 
In Java, strange to say, nothing is done in the 
cultivation and preparation of gambier. The custom 
house returns shew that the imports of this 
article there reach a considerable figure. For 
mixing with sirih leaves alone, the Javanese re- 
quire large quantities of gambier. 
The Deli COurant of the 80th July asserts 
that, of late, the price demanded on engaging 
coolies for that Settlement in the Straits, has 
been steadily rising. Seventy dollars and even 
more per head have to be paid. The brokers hav- 
ing gained the upper hand owing to division among 
the planters, carry all before them. Nothing more 
is heard of direct importation of labour from 
China. Every hope of anything of the kind be- 
ing set on foot must now be given up. Direct 
shipments of coolies from China to Banka too 
does not answer. At least an agreement entered 
into by the Netherlands Indian Government with 
the firm of Pasedag and Co., for the enlistment 
of Hokien coolies for the behoof of the tin mines 
in Banka, l.ave not led to any fatisfactory 
results. The consequence is that a European 
Netherlands Indian Chinese interpreter now stay- 
ing in China, on a special mission has been charged 
to enlist BOO Hokien Chinese for Banka. Several 
leading Deli planters, a year and a half ago. com- 
missioned him to do likewise for them, but not 
a single Chinaman engaged by that official has yet 
arrived in Deli. In Bunka, too, the coolie supply 
threatens to run short. It seems that tin Straits 
brokers do wield greater influence than evtr in 
Chinese ports, by a free distribution of money as 
a mutter of course. So long as the planters cannot 
conmiimd a like inlluence there, direct coolie immi- 
gration from China will remain impracticable. 
The brokers evidently have ho Deli planters com- 
pletely in their power. 
