August i, 1881.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
177 
EASTWARD HO ! 
Planting in Johoke and Borneo. 
" It is au ill wind that blows nobody any good," 
and there can be no doubt that the wiud of adversity 
which has blown for some years so persistently across 
the planting enterprise of Ceylon has been fraught 
with some good to our neighbours and possible rivals 
as plantation colonies. Were it not lor the local 
depression of the past few years and the miserable 
delay over Railway Extension, it is not likely that 
so many of the capitalists and some of the best 
"planting blood" of Ceylon would have turned their 
attention to the Straits Settlements and the Eastern 
Archipelago. Men, whose capital and experience would 
have found a satisfactory and a very beneficial outlet 
in opening up reserves — high aud low — throughout 
tbe extensive Uva principality, had a railway been 
Carried into its heart four years ago, have been forced 
to transfer that same experience and pioneering capacity 
to Penaug, Perak, aud Johore, to tiorueo and to far- 
ther Fiji. And the same retrograde, dead-and-alive 
policy, if persisted in, will inevitably induce further 
desertions of Ceylon in favour of States, more advant- 
ageously situated or better administered. 
The eagerness and liberality displayed by the Straits 
authorities towards their infant planting enterprise 
reminds one of what was experienced in Ceylon in 
the days of Sir Henry Ward. Sir Frederick Weld— 
the beau-ideal of an active Governor— sees in the 
development of the forest resources and the opening 
of plantations the best guarantee for moral and mate- 
rial progress. He aud his councillors seem ail alive 
to the great opportunity before them. But they too 
to some extent are thwarted from home. The Governor 
has had a second time to return to the attack in his 
endeavour to obtain the consent of the Home authori- 
ties to the importation of Indian labour into the 
adjacent native States. But there is so far no scarcity 
of labqur. The progress already made in some parts 
is well shewn in a map, which we have received by 
the present mail from Mr. E. A. Watson, of the 
Pulai range of Johore. Mr. Watson is the indefatig- 
able pioneer of this district, aud the block plan of 
the estates shews that all the land except certain 
Government reserves is taken up. Of the clearings 
600 acres are planted, and lining, holing, roadiug are 
going on rapidly over the rest of the clearings. Fur- 
ther, Mr. Watson writes : — 
" I hope soon to be able to send you plans of the 
* Panfcie ' and ' Batu Pahat ' ranges on which all 
the land iB aleo taken. On the former range there 
i» a clearing of 100 acres, and on the latter range 
there are 1,100 acres of clearings, of which 250 acres 
are now planted. The coffee is coming on very well, 
Tun.ini 
estates on 
of 10 cha 
in all, w 
of Gover 
names in 
The list 
Estate. 
uuvc aparu 1101 
inent reserve, £ 
the proprietors 
Proprietor. 
on that point, though it 
,'s splendid block plan of 
u range, Johore, on a scale 
nd comprising 14, 144 acres 
1 two or three small lots 
long list of responsible 
owning handsome blocks. 
Wh.i, 1 v 
Michixelstow 
Castlcwoud 
Scylla. 
45 
G. A. Dick 254 
G. H. H. Austen 204 
T. S. Thomson 997 
Late C. L C. Falconar 513 
A. T. Dew 292* 
W. P. Garland ."2S" 
A. H. Murray-Menziea 1007 
M. Larken .SOS.', 
A llickling 300 
Cleared. 
Acres. 
100 
150 
Halnaty 
Proprietor. 
F. Newman 
J. Weir 
W. F. Mayes 
Capt. F. Payley 
T. H. Moorhouse 
L. C. Glenny 
M. P. Evans 
Hon. R. Campbell 
G. R. Davies 
W. G. Gordon 
Hon. T. Shelford 
E. A. Watson 
J. Thurburn 
Area. 
Acres. 
404 
306 
351 
307i 
50Gi 
489 
305 
508 
494 
297 
294i- 
473 
1,009 
( 'lea.red. 
Acres. 
157 
400 
212 
Gwenmore 
Wooclcote 
Drumdruan 
Scudai Plant- 
ing Coy. S. Mohamed 4044 
Pulai Coy. Lt. — 1,503" 
Johore has gained at the expense of Ceylon in hav- 
ing among its plantation owners such men as Messrs. 
G. A. Dick, T. H. Moorhouse, Capt. Bayley, James 
Weir, F. Newman, E. A. Watson, L. C. Glenny, A, 
H. Murray-Menzies, and others, and undoubtedly this 
process of a transfer of interests will go on unless 
the Ceylon Government are able to relieve Uva and 
to open young low-country districts. On the plan 
before us we have one prominent spot noted as " site 
for Railway Station on proposed line to the town of 
Johore Bahru, twenty miles distant," and Mr. Gar- 
land is just the man to carry this project to a suc- 
cessful issue. While Johore and Perak are thus getting 
rapidly occupied, there is Borneo with it3 most ex- 
tensive and varied resources being entered upon under 
the auspices of Messrs. Dent's powerful Agricultural 
Company, for which Ceylon once more provides the 
training and experience needful for the planting of 
tropical products. We shall, of course, occupy a 
proud position as a colony in being the mother of 
so many flourishing off-shoots ; but we should rejoice 
the more in the good prospects and good management 
of the latter, did we feel that justice was being done 
to the wealth and resources of the parent. 
COFFEE AND CHICORY. 
(From the Produce Markets Review.) 
The Planters' Association in Ceylon are much ex- 
ercised in their minds, owing to the admixtures al- 
lowed with Coffee in this country, and are about to 
memorialise the Home Government on the subject. 
The Weekly Ceylon Observer says that whether the home 
authorities put a stop or not to the mixtures which are 
so injurious to the interests of the Colony, "there is 
one reform which, if put as an alternative in the Ceylon 
memorial, it seems to us cannot possibly be refused 
at this time of day. We refer to the declaration on 
the label required on such mixtures of the proportions 
of each substance which they purport to contain. If 
this is done, it will open the eyes of the consumers to 
the small quantity of Coffee they are really receiving in 
their mixtures, and moerover, it will enable a check 
to be put on Coffee, as on other adulterations ; for, 
should the proportion of Coffee be found less on 
•eproach that the 
was not continued 
ition. Surely public 
Reform, Free Trade, and so many more legislative 
victories, namely, agitate, agitate, agitate." 
