October i, 1887.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
PLANTING- IN NETHERLANDS INDIA. 
(Trar slated for the Straits Times.) 
In the matter of adulteration, the Chinese are never 
at a loss for inventiveness. They are fully up to every 
trick of trade. Take for instance ground coffee. Since, 
that article has risen in price at Surabaya the Ohiuese 
dealers have mixed it with burnt maize so artfully 
that the falsification is only detected on using the 
mixture. 
At Batavia on the 26th August, the date of the last 
advices, there was hardly anything doing in the pro- 
duce market, though sugar and coffee showed tendency 
to a rise. As to sugar, it has been so often confid- 
ently asserted that prices must go up before long, that 
growers who waited for it had got impatient. They 
saw nothing of the kind coming. When it at last drew 
near, the change for the better proved to be too 
late for the many who had found the contest too much 
for them. At the outset of the crisis, there was no 
lack of dark pictures setting forth the evil conse- 
quences inevitably following the ruin of the sugar grow- 
ing interest. Pity was especially expressed for the 
natives who would be deprived of opportunities to earn 
wages on sugar estates as coolies, thereby diminishing 
their power of purchasing imported goods. Yet, after 
several sugar plantations have been closed with the 
result of lessening the circulation of money among 
them, the import trade has been brisk notwithstanding. 
The Javanese for all this do surfer a great deal from 
Government compulsory labour and burdensome 
taxation. 
A Netherlands merchant who has spent many years 
in the Indian Archipelago is, by last advices, doing 
his best to start a cultivation company in Holland 
for planting enterprise in East Borneo. His efforts 
to arouse interest in that country in Holland, have 
met with sore discouragment. The country itself is 
almost unknown in the mother country. Yet it abounds 
with coal and possesses a soil of high fertility. The 
land is, however, underpopulated. Doubtless the 
labour difficulty blocks the way. 
The coffee crop in Bali this year, has fallen far 
below the average. A heavy decrease is noticeable in 
the quantities brought to market. 
Tamil coolies have been tried and found wanting 
in West Sumatra. They had to be discharged owing 
to their turbulent character. This is however only 
the first trial with them there. Subsequent experi- 
menting may turn out more successfully. Perseverance 
may result in the selection of better material. 
Failure at the outset is to be expected until 
the right way is hit upon at length. In Deli for 
instance, pioneering was no easy work at the start. 
A correspondent of the Java Bode who has paid 
a visit to Deli, says that life there is not at all 
pleasant in comparison with Java. Yet capital and 
labour How abundantly into the whole coast from 
the Acheen frontier to the southern bound- 
ary of Palembang. So great is the number, of 
Europeans flocking thither from Java where planting 
prospects are gloomy indeed, that appearances point 
to their being rats leaving the sinking ship. In Deli 
itself almost all the available land has been taken up. 
The pioneers of civilisation have hence betaken them- 
selves to more southerly districts. There the jungle 
on the seacoast has been cleared away to make 
room for tobacco fields. In Siak alone, more than 
thirty leases have been issued to planters. The 
local sultans and chiefs welcome monied pioneers 
with open arms as a matter of course. Quit-rent and 
laud assessment bring them in a large revenue. They 
draw handsome fees from sealing, signing, and deliver- 
ing the leases. Many of these estates are heavily 
backed by British or German capital. Some planters 
have a solid firm to draw upon, but those who try to 
get on trusting to themselves only find it hard work 
indeed to keep above water. Desertion and death 
among their labourers resultiug in heavy losses by ad- 
vances to them and in half cleared fields remaining 
uncultivated, a strict coolie ordinance, worms and 
locusts among their growing crops, inferior sub- 
soil, and vicissitudes of the weather soon briug on 
be rain of a young estate. Even, whou everything 
has been squared with the native authorities, the 
planter euci utters diffeilties with the .European 
officials on the score of demarcation marks which' 
are not easy to find or rightly fix amid jungle and 
bush. The settlement of boundary questions leads 
to lengthy correspondence and grievous trouble before 
a settlement is arrived at. This circumlocution policy 
comes with ill grace from a Government which has 
enriched itself with an overflowing revenue from 
districts opened out by the planters, in the shape of 
customs duties, registration fees, and sundry forms 
of taxation. Very little of all this money is spent 
for the benefit of the country, the balance going t > 
swell the Java revenue. So disregarded are the re- 
quirements of the planters, that applications from 
them for the importation of firearms for the defence 
of their estates sometimes lie pigeonholed for a year, 
before the officials concerned come to a decision. 
Custom houses are set up at every river mouth for 
the levy of duties on almost every necessary of life. 
The planters are harassed by revenue demands, and 
by the need for filling up lengthy and burjensome 
official forms regarding their estates. The rattan for- 
bidden to the planters, is freely used by the Govern- 
ment in the prisons. The inmates of the latter are 
said to be so grossly neglected that the estate coolies 
are far better off as regards medical attendance and 
rate of mortality. "Remonstrance and protest against 
such an objectionable policy have alike proved un- 
availing. 
On some of the estates on the East coast of Suma- 
tra, the managers evidently require a tight hand over 
them on the part of the authorities. In Serdang the 
Controller has been obliged to take prompt action 
against the manager of the Timbang Deli estate, ow- 
ing to his harbouring absconding coolies from other 
estates. The consequence was that the estate became 
the resort of all kinds of bad characters. Several 
Europeans who had gone thither to recover runaway 
coolies, were received in such a hostile manner that 
they had to beat a hasty retreat. The Controller there- 
upon set out for the spot himself, accompanied by 
policemen and several Europeans to recognise the 
coolies. On arriving, they found that the manager 
had made himself scarce. Of 200 coolies known to be 
on the estate, only 40 put in an appearance. The 
balance found it to their advantage to hide them- 
selves in the neighbouring jungle. On the estate itself 
confusion and disorder reigned supreme. By degrees 
about 70 more coolies turned up who almost all of 
them proved to be absconders. They were, one and 
all, duly sent back to the estates to which they be- 
longed. Some 60 remained in hiding in the bushes. 
The estate itself presented such a scene of bad and 
neglectful management, that the Europeans present 
asserted with one accord that it was scarcely possible 
such a state of things could exist now in Deli. 
The head tindal who, apparently had played a leading 
part in employing the absconders has been taken in 
custody. The owners of the estate will now endeavour 
to make the best of it with a new manager. This 
incident affords another instance of the need for 
prudence in selecting managers, to avoid loss of money 
and good name. 
With the steady growth of planting enterprise on 
the East Coast of Sumatra and the continual increase 
in the number of estates, new brands have made their 
appearance in the tobacco market. Good and bad 
tobacco from the same estate is forwarded under 
different brands — the superior kind naturally under 
the same brand, but the inferior under lane ones 
giving no clue to their place of origin. This practice 
has only come into vogue since last year. Buyers 
who have paid dearly for tobacco fancying that it 
was the whole crop of an estate will naturally feel 
aggrieved on finding out that, under novel brands, 
tobacco from the same estate has passed into other 
hands. A continuance of this practice cannot but 
harm the Deli planting interest. 
Planters in Deli not only suffer from lack of Chinese 
coolies on the estates, but also from turbulence 
among those whom they have had the luck to secure. 
The other day, about fifty coolies from the Rimbuu 
estate made their appearance before the Government 
