Feb. 1, 1904] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
617 
more valuable minor products are found, and t'l ' 
total gros8 revenue for the remunerative foresta 
amounts to Bs 2,16,00,000. 
THE TOTAL FOREST REVENUE. 
The total forest revenue for the Presidency from 
State forests only would then amount to Uoo hundred 
and forty lakhs in round figure?, or almost ten timea 
the present revenue, and if ihe existing ratio be' ween 
revenue and expenditure wei-e maintained, the net 
revenue would amount to no less than eighty lakh?. 
AlthouKh the revenue producing power of forests is 
the lowest imaginable point of view from which a 
Forest Officer should regard tliem, it is permissible to 
descend to this level on behalf of the forests them- 
selves, and as they can only be made to yield their TuU 
revenue if efficiently protected, it may be well to show 
what, nnder such circumstances, might be expected 
from them — Indian Forester. 
RHEA IN NORTH BORNEO. 
THE SUiNLAMBA ESTATE. 
F. M.J. S. writes to the British Xouh Borneo 
Herald: — In an interesting article on abaca, the 
Phillippine Staple Industry, specially written for 
the Honghonq Telegraph, the following extracts which 
are devoted to an account of the cultivation of Rhea 
Rs experimented in British North Borneo show that 
this country haa not yet been given a fair trial in the 
development of an industry which, in view of the 
deterioration in the quality of Manila Hemp that haa 
been characteristic of the market during the last ftw 
years, gives rise to the suggestion that Borneo could 
be brought to the front with ft little capital invest- 
ment as a successful rival of the Philippines. 
It is evident that 
DECORTICATING BY MACHINERI 
with its enormous saving of hands, must be of 
the greatest advantage in a sparaely populated 
country, like Borneo, where the labour has to be 
imported at considerable expense. One of the great- 
est obstacles to the prosperity of the tobacco 
estates has always been the high death-rate among 
the coolies, of whom a large tobacco estate employa 
many hundreds ; some having more than a thousand 
men in pay. A hemp plantation will by no me.%n3 
run into such figures, and besides the coolies would 
be spread over a great surface, making the sanitation 
much easier 
I(, therefore, a part of the crop would pass through 
the machinery, the number of coolies could be greaily 
reduced, even if the contention of the mtnufactnrere, 
that a 14-H,P. plant (costing about £900 f.o.b. Liver- 
pool) requiring 25 coolies, would produce about 3,000 
lbs. of clean fibre, haled for export had to be consider- 
ably discounted. The quantity named after our 
previous estimate would represent a single man's 
work for sixteen months. 
That machinery, effective in any way, will be con- 
structed in the near future, does not admit of any 
doubt. Too great interests are at stake and the ante- 
dilnviun way of decorticating may be soon enough 
a thing of the past. Many years will elapse before 
over production seta in reducing the high prices now 
paid, and the product of the hemp industry, for a 
considerable time, will be unusually high. A stuff 
which rcquirea at least two or three years for growing 
cannot be produced in any quantity at once and 
! the first in the market will benefit most. .. Un- 
! fortunately the proprietor of Suanhimba, Mr. P. D., 
of Glasgow, did not engage the services of a practical 
] man in due time. After procuring, at great cost, 
I several thousand young plants from the Philippines, 
' the estate was opened out with a success which 
would have startled the exports from this country. 
It t\v3 yfiar^!. /e., in a ye.ir Itj.u time than the Fili- 
pinos require for that woik 
PERFECTLY DEVELOPED CLUSTERS OF STEMS 
more than four yards long had been obtained and this, 
result was greatly to the credit of the Snpeiin- 
tpndent, a well kuown scientific man of high standing. 
The botanist's part of the business being finished, 
a practical estate manager ought to have been 
pioonred at any cost to woik out a good 
system of roads and the necessary drain?, and to 
build permanent houses and shtdsi. The man of 
science perhaps knew too little of these require- 
ment.<!. I3esidea, being overstrained — at least entirely 
absorbed by his official work — he had no time to 
occupy himself especially with the superintendence 
of the esta.e. The latter was worked by Managers 
recruited from the casual unemployed, who, as a rule, 
had as little practical knowledge of estate work is 
the doctor and far less idea of managing working men. 
They seem never to have come to an appreciation 
of the ;eqnirements of the case, nor of the number 
of coolies necessary for the pulling of the fibre. 
Special funds for the latter were never demanded 
from the proprietor ; invalids dismissed from the 
hospital, or jail-birds had a few weeks of leisure on 
the estate, enjoying a regular daily pay for their es- 
teemed preterce, and a happy viodus xivendi without 
care or trouble set in, which brought the estate no 
fuither prog.esB, but most effectually dealt with the 
funds sent from Europe. The original wooden build- 
ings in the course of a few years decayed through 
neglect and the Managers shifted their residence to 
Sandakan, 26 miles by water from the estate. This 
happy Arcadian life came to a sudden close. The 
proprietor, who had long expected a good return 
from the laid out capital and rather unwillingly 
allowed the continuous drain on his purse, sent out 
a real planter to report about his property and, if 
possible, to put it on a reasonable footing. The 
report was not very encouraging, but the man imme- 
diately saw the extraordinary possibilities of the case 
and demanded £2,500 for coolies, roads and drains, 
new houses, extension work and the up keep of all 
this for about li years, after which time he pretended 
to be able to make the concern pay a very handsome 
return. The irate proprietor read the report of this 
new man and soon saw him — elsewhere. The estate 
was closed, and ever since the waving leaves of 
solitary banana bush in the rear of Sandakan b ly 
are reflected by the dark, over-shadowed waters of 
A deserted river. Years of work and many thousands 
of capital have been spent up to the present without 
result, and one of the most justified expectations of 
British North Borneo as a colony haa been frustrated 
or, at least, delayed for many years. 
And yet the capital employed in this plantation 
is not completely lost. A thorough clearing, removing 
of the over-ripe stems as well aa the too exuberant 
growth of young shoots, rebuilding of houses and 
roads, and a stafi of coolies alone ia required to put 
the estate at once again in working order. And this 
will scarcely, if at all, cost more than it would have 
cost at the closing ot the estate. This is one future 
of abac.-t planting, which raises its chances high 
above that of the tobacco ; the latter plant dies out 
in the year it is planted, while tea and coffee de- 
generate and are choked by herbs and wiUl growth 
of all kinds in a short time, causing an almost entiie 
loss of the capital invested, after operations have 
been stopped. 
ffhe man whose report was so fateful for Suanlamba 
esstate, a Sumatra tobacco planter who had pri- 
vately studied the development of ramie for some 
time, put all consideration of this certainly valuable 
phmt otf and started, in his land of adoption, a pro- 
paganda for his new ideal, abaca. Like many another 
prophet his word counted for little in his own country. 
He studied carefully everything contained about 
abaca in a dozen books relating to travels in the 
Philippines, and wrote a pamphlet on the subject 
of his hobby in three languages— Dutch, German and 
