988 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[May i, 1882. 
no signs of surface drainage, and the gullies are at this 
season all overgrown. Whenever a spring occurs on the 
hillside there nestles a village close by, but villages are 
few and far between. This comparative paucity of water 
applies by no means to the valleys. 
Around Tinaan a considerable space is under cultiv- 
ation, while with the other villages the planting grounds 
lie at a distance. These people live on the Dioscorea 
bulb (yam), but they grow rice for sale. The grain is 
not to be had at a short notice ; our hosts were busy 
during the night in husking the padi for our consump- 
tion. The Bajows coming from the coast only buy the 
padi for the sake of a tiifrng profit, and to give then- 
women at home something to do. 
May 18. — The country traversed today is watered by 
the Sonzogan rivulet, an affluent of the Bengkoka, and 
is a dense jungle instead of timber forest. In it we 
Baw both the gutta creeper and the gutta tree. The 
latter, a Spotaceous plant, yields the stiff vaiiety known 
in the Singapore market as " Guttah kras," or " Guttah 
rnerah" (gutta percha). From the former, representing 
"Roxburgh's Urceola elastica," is obtained the " Guttah 
lichak," or " Guttah susu," the indiaraubber proper, I 
believe. It is a pity that these Dusuns cut down the 
tree just as they do the creeper. They extract the milk 
by a number of circular incisions from eight inches to 
one foot apart. The milk of the "Urceola" we found 
snow white, but of little consistency at the time. The 
stem in question was one foot in diameter, and but 
recently tapped. Among the Dusuns to the south of 
Kinabalu a fine is imposed for cutting a tree down ; at 
the Upper Kimanis the offender has to pay a bufialo. 
As gutta collecting gradually comes under the practical 
control of the company's officers, a sort of jungle-con- 
servancy might be established with advantage. Thus, 
the collectors ought to be taught the South American 
(Para) method. Dusuns are a tribe open to sensible 
advice. 
The rock here is sandstone. In the Sonzogon we 
found nothing but crabs, which however delighted our 
men, who are very keen on them. 
May 19.' — In the jungle today we saw trunks of the 
gutta-percha tree having a girth upwards of six feet and 
nearly a hundred feet in height. One of them seemed 
to overbridge a crevice. We halted at Palin, the last 
village in the Sonzogon country. These Dusuns have 
the peculiarity of pronouncing the yo, ya, as go, za. 
But then* indifference to the use of salt is much more 
.peculiar. A brine-spring in the vicinity of Palin is 
scarcely ever resorted to, and they never give anything 
for salt brought to them from the coast. This applies 
to the whole Sonzogan people, who live, as already 
stated, on sweet potatoes and water. The returns for 
their rice and gutta they hoard up in the darkest 're- 
cesses of the bush, consists of brass in every conceiv- 
able shape — the only thing their heart is set on. 
May 25. — Between Nolumpis and Kagasingan the 
country does not rise to more than 1,100 ft. It is 
mostly covered with old forest, and well watered. In 
the fields around Kagasingan the Nicotiana strikes the 
eye most ; badly cured, it yields a good second-class 
tobacco. 
June 12. — Where the nominal alteration of the river 
occurs, there stood formerly a village, Sapaan, and 
tliere also joins a rivulet, named Luon do Parei, on the 
leff shore. Below there the shores are flat, and the 
jungle is interrupted by abandoned planting ground. 
The stream is fifty yards wide, easy, and too deep for 
Biiags. The principal growth is rice and sugar-cane. 
The Tambouuas know how to prepare raw sugar. The 
welcome gift of Oraug Kaya Binua consisted of a cup- 
ful of molasses and a lump of bay-salt. The quality 
of tobacco is even lower tban the grounds whereon it 
is 1 rown. I quite understand the troubles we had with 
the rain (which I hear from Mr. Pryer was rather un- 
><■■ a bit), on seeing the rice stalks here two feet high, 
At Tampassuk the season is not so advanced ; there 
they just commence to dress their rice fields. On the 
other hand, the rains "behind" Kinabalu — that is, to 
the S.E.. E., and N.E. of it — set in much later than 
on the west coast. 
Having had occasion to observe Tambanuas in four 
different rivers pretty far apart, I can safely assert 
them to be superior to the Dusuns proper in several 
respects. Industry and quick perception are common 
to all the aborigines in northernmost Borneo; but the 
Tambonua is free from drink and dirt, and there is 
about Tambouuas not only nothing ferocious known, but 
they are possessed of the only redeeming feature of 
the pure Malay race, namely, a sense of decency and 
politeness. 
June 13. — On the way to the Kinabatangan we counted 
no more than twenty-five houses, scattered over five 
miles of the river-course. The remaining portion of the 
latter was found today fifteen miles and a half long. 
That gives the whole Lukan river twenty miles through- 
out — at floods, even for a steamer drawing 10 ft. To 
that the Koun Koun would add, for small craft, thirty- 
six miles, of which, however, only eleven are below the 
rapids. It is, on the whole, a respectable waterway into 
the zone between Kinabatangan (Meliao) and Labuk 
(Linogu). I understand the Lukan Koun Koun to be 
the most considerable of all affluents to the Kinabatan- 
gan, keeping its head-waters apart. 
That the long stretch of country between Labuk and 
Kinabatangan is almost uninhabited will hardly prevent 
its being resorted to as a source of gutta, rubber, cam- 
phor, beeswax, and rattans. There is but a small tract 
on either end of the Koun Koun where collecting pro- 
duce has been initiated, but that scarcely breaks into 
such a vast field. 
On the general appearance of the Kinabatangan shores, 
&c, I have little to remark: the jungle is less impos- 
ing than that up Koun Koun, the Linogu and Sugut, 
but will be so much the easier cleared of for agricultural 
purposes ; and the constant accession of fresh soil should 
guarantee great fertility. Just now the banks are flooded 
and a considerable area seems converted into a lagoon ; 
the sediment is of truly Nilotic proportion. By estim- 
ate the river has here (below the Lukan fork) 30,200 
cubic feet every second, and the Lukan has about one- 
twelfth of that quantity. Dry and rocky spots are but 
few, and on them I cannot discern flood marks above 
the present level. The river is seven to ten fathoms 
deep ; it strikes one the more to see in mid-stream 
some grounded log peeping out like a hippopotamus. — 
Field. 
MANURE ADULTERATION IN SCOTLAND. 
(Field, 11th February, 1882.) 
During the last few years the greater part of Scot- 
land has been covered by the operations and influence 
of district analytical associations — i.e., associations framed 
in the various districts with the view of checking man- 
tu-e and feeding-stuff adulteration by providiug increased 
facilities for analysis. While the operations — indeed, 
the bare existence — of these associations afforded farmers 
a considerable degree of protection from the dishonest 
manure manufacturer and the unscrupulous agent or 
disseminator, it was found by the more intelligent in- 
dependent farmers that something of a stronger character 
was required — something of the nature of a central 
organisation. Accordingly, the Highland Society was 
moved to reorganise its chemical department, so that 
dishonesty might be not only detected, but also exposed, 
as was done by the Royal English Agricultural Society, 
so fearlessly and effectually. 
Last year was the first under the new rer/imc of the 
Highland Society's supervision over the whole of Scot- 
hind, and it has revealed an amount of fraud that few 
expected could at this of day be practised with impunity. 
