THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST 
244 
[October i, 1890 
THE PLANTING ENTERPEISE IN JOHORE 
AND THE MALAY PENINSULA GENERALLY. 
{From our Special Correspondent ) 
There are several groups of coffee estates in 
Johore, but those visited on this occasion lie at the 
southernmost point of 'the Malayan Peninsula. 
Having been told by the proprietors that there 
was nothing in the way of soil, it was an agreeable 
surprise to find that, compared with the majority 
of the estates visited in Perak and Selangor, there 
was some very fair soil in parts of the property 
in Johore. The coffee is Liberian and planted on 
undulating ground, close to the seashore, a narrow 
belt of coconut palms and native gardens separa- 
ting it from the open sea. The highest points 
are probably a couple of hundred feet above sea- 
level, and the higher you go, the worse the soil 
and the greater proportion of cabook gravel. This 
is exactly the opposite to what may be found in 
the hills of Perak, where the higher you go the 
better the soil as a rule, of course there are 
pockets of fine surface soil in tbe hollows. Amongst 
these little hillocks and sloping fields in Johore 
there are great stretches of swamp with black soil, 
and in these positions sago palms flourish, and 
great numbers (some hundreds of acres) have been 
planted up. The Liberian coSee is very much 
exposed to the winds from the sea, and is without 
shelter from the tropical storms that come tearing 
across the Straits. Very bed weather prevailed 
at the time of our visit. In spite, however, of 
this drawback and the want of richness in most 
of the soil, the coffee bushes looked very well- 
fine fields of dark.green trees, bearing a good crop. 
They had been a long time growing before they 
gave any appreciable profit, but there were many 
other reasons for this, apart from the conditions 
of soil and climate. The coffee is peeled on the 
estate by means of hammer pounders, working 
in mortars, and the superintendent could well 
be congratulated on having obtained the highest 
price for Liberian in the London Market. This 
estate can boast of an engine and steam-worked 
machinery. 
These properties are unfortunately completely 
isolated from civilization and society, being some 
sixteen to twenty miles by sea from Singapore. 
Considerable extensions have been made and are still 
in progress, and before long the company to all 
appearance will possess a very valuable property. 
A number of Jayanese coolies are employed, as well 
as Tamils, Malays and Chinese. Large numbers of 
nutmeg trees are planted at intervals through the 
coffee, and the produce is now coming in. An- 
other source of revenue is oubebs, the vines of 
which appear to be flourishing and doing well. 
Ipecachuana is also grown on the estate and is said 
to prove a profitable cultivation. As regards the 
common enemy leaf disease with the green bug— 
these estates are no better off than those in the 
protected states, in fact are to all appearance rather 
worse. It may be mentioned that the green bug 
can be seen in Penang on a guava tree right in the 
middle of the town. 
Speaking generallv of the impression received dur- 
ing a trip through Perak and Selangor and a short 
visit to a small portion of Johore, it would appear 
that, the Liberian variety of oofiee is admirably 
adopted to the soil and climate of the country 
throughout the Malayan Peninsula, and that the 
Arabian coffee does very well on the higher slopes 
of the hills in Perak. With present prices the estates 
are paying well, and future prospects are very 
brilliant. The great question at the present day is 
that of labour. Present prioes may admit of a daily 
wage of twenty-five cents of a dollar, but that amount 
is a very heavy one on which to estimate the working 
of the estates as a general rule for the future. 
Railway and road communications will shortly be 
such as never at any time advantaged the opening 
of any new district in Ceylon. The terms on 
which jungle land is offered to bona fide investors 
are extremely favorable more to what has obtained 
in Ceylon during the present generation of plan- 
ters in the island. 
There are many other products for which suitable 
land can be found in these settlements, such as 
sugar, pepper, tapioca, sago, tobacco, gambier, rice, 
coconuts, &o. 
Of these the favorite amongst Europeans seems to 
be pepper. The method of supporting the vines 
adopted by Europeans usually differs from that of 
the native planters, who train the vine up the 
stem of a living tree. As a rule the dndsp 
{Erythrina indica) is used for this purpose, it 
being a fast-growing tree and easily propagated 
either by seed or cuttings. 
The European custom however is to train the 
pepper vines upon pieces of roughly split hardwood 
timber, which is said to withstand the weather and 
the attacks of white ants as long as will be required 
for use as supports to the vine, that is to say as 
long as the vine can be made to give pro- 
fitable crops. In one Chinaman’s garden we 
saw some very old pepper vines said to be twenty 
years old clinging to these supports ; though in 
many oases it seemed as if the vine supported 
the remains of the decayed posts rather than the 
posts supporting the vines. It is moreover advanced 
by the advocates of the post support system, that 
the vines are more prolific when exposed to the 
sun than when grown under the shade of living 
trees, and it may well be that there is a good 
deal of truth in this statement. Pepper vines have 
their natural enemies like every other product. 
A little beetle lays its eggs in the knot from 
whence the new shoots spring. The egg develops 
into a maggot, which bores its way into the 
young shoot, and a foot or more in length of 
course dies away. Gangs of coolies are employed 
cutting off the affected shoots and putting them 
into buckets of boiling water. Some of the pepper 
fields are bearing heavily and should give a hand- 
some return. They are mostly treated with manure 
of various kinds. The bats’ dung guano found in the 
Batu limestone caves is said on analysis to be 
wanting in phosphates, but however this may be 
it seems to be very suitable for manuring pepper 
vines : some that had been treated with this guano 
were bearing a very heavy crop. An experiment 
was being tried on one estate. Dipping the clusters 
of pepper berries into boiling water before drying 
them is a common practice, but this experiment 
consisted in exposing them for some minutes to the 
smoke from a wood fire. It has not transpired what 
has been the result, but one would suppose great 
care about the selection of the wood should be 
exercised, especially if it were in a green state. 
Many woods produce a disagreeable pungent smoke 
— sometimes of a very disagreeable odour, and 
the pepper might become unpleasantly tainted 
either as regards taste, or smell, or both. In Se- 
langor large extents of land covering thousands of 
acres in the aggregate have been opened up by 
Chinese principally for the cultivation of pepper, 
tapioca and gambier. Their success has been great 
and a large trade has sprung up, so much so that 
an enterprising firm of Chinese at Singapore are 
running small steamers to bring out the produce 
and carry it to the markets at Singap'^i’e to be 
thence transhipped probably to other paits of tbe 
world. 
