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THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST, 
[April  i,  1896. 
ruary  sale,  is  about  two  thousand  acres  in  extent; 
and  a very  large  portion  of  this  property  would 
have  been  immediately  planted  up  had  everything 
gone  well.  Nearly  400  acres  have  been  cleared,  and 
a number  of  substantial  buildings  have  been  erected. 
There  are  upwards  of  one  hundred  thousand  plants  in 
the  nurseries,  and  several  acres  have  been  planned 
up.  Of  main  and  outlet  drains  alone,  more  than  14 
miles  have  been  cut.  Even  had  the  Government 
carried  out  its  proposed  drainage  scheme,  it  would 
not  equal  the  work  which  has  been  accomplished  on 
this  estate  alone ! But,  of  course,  so  long  as  the 
Government  road  drains  remain  uncompleted,  the 
cutting  of  drains  or  any  other  work  which  may  be 
done  on  the  estate  is  so  much  labour  lost.  We  may 
presume  that  the  Government  will  not  attempt  to  sell 
any  more  agricultural  blocks  at  Klaug  for  the  time 
being,  and  that  a commission  will  be  appointed,  with- 
out delay,  to  report  on  the  drainage  question  » * » 
And  now,  what  will  become  of  that  highly-valued 
Cultivation  Clause  ? If  the  Government  proves  equal 
to  the  occasion  and  carries  out  its  undertakings  im- 
mediately, then  work  may  be  resumed  on  the  estates 
which  have  been,  or  are  about  to  be,  abandoned.  Possi- 
bly the  owners  will  consider  their  land  fit  to  be  planted 
twelve  months  hence — five  years  hence — ten  years  hence 
— in  any  case  it  is  evident  that  the  Cultivation 
Clause  will  have  to  be  waived  so  far  as  regards  this 
land  sold  by  auction,  because  no  one  but  an  experi- 
enced planter  will  be  qualified  to  decide  when  the 
soil  will  be  fit  for  growing  coffee,  and  at  the  present 
time,  this  problem  is  beyond  the  ken  of  even  the 
wisest.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  Sir  Charles  Mitchell 
will  grant  the  Resident  of  this  State  a free  hand  to  do 
all  that  can  be  done  to  re-establish  the  planting  re- 
utation  of  the  district.  There  are  of  course,  many 
undred  acres  of  excellent  coffee  land  owned  both  by 
Europeans  and  by  natives,  in  the  neighbourhood  ; but 
it  will  be  a serious  matter  if  half,  or  two-thirds  of  all 
the  land  sold  at  public  auction  has  to  be  permanently 
abandoned.  Hopes  for  the  future  prosperity  of  the 
Federated  States  are  mainly  based  on  agriculture, 
and,  therefore,  no  reasonable  effort  should  be  spared 
to  maintain  the  good  repute  of  the  coffee  planting 
industry. 
Our  Singapore  contemporary,  in  tlie  course  of 
a leader  commenting  on  the  foregoing,  says  : — 
Probably  sales  of  coffee  land  in  Klang  in  the  districts 
affected  will  have  now  to  be  stopped,  pending  the  set- 
tlement of  the  questions  thus  raised.  Another  question 
arises  from  the  cultivation  clause  which  the  Governor 
Is  anxious  to  fasten  upon  planters  who  buy  land  from 
Government  to  enforce  the  clause  on  the  planters 
who  have  just  come  to  grief  in  Klang  through  the 
fault  of  Government  runs  counter  to  justice.  These 
planters,  in  short,  appear  to  suffer  from  official  short- 
comings, and  the  Governor  should  rouse  the  Selangor 
Government  a keener  sense  of  duty.  The  future  of 
Federated  Malaya  admittedly  depends  mainly  upon 
the  progress  of  agriculture  there,  but  planting  enter- 
prise cannot  be  expected  to  make  neacl  under  official 
discouragement  such  as  that  now  instanced  in  Klaug. 
Disrepute  has  consequently  befallen  that  district 
which  has  hitherto  stood  high  in  coffee-planting 
circles.  The  Governor  has  already  shown  that  he  is 
disposed  to  take  planters’  grievances  into  due  con- 
sideration, and  H,E.  has  now  another  opportunity  to 
do  justice  to  the  planting  community.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  H.E.  will  rise  to  the  occasion. 
MESSRS.  FORSYTHE  AND  CHRISTIE  AND  THft  FIASCO. 
On  the  6th  inst.,  the  Sfraits  limes  “gave  away" 
the  situation  more  completely.  The  article  has  some 
humour  in  its  grimness,  as  will  bo  seen  by  a perusal 
of  what  follows  : — 
THE  END  OF  THE  KLANG  BOOM. 
We  stated  yesterday  that  “ the  land  boom  at  Klang 
may  become  a thing  of  the  past,  unless  the  Selangor 
Government  radically  mends  its  ways."  The  addi- 
tional information  tendered  us  is  that  the  land  boom 
at  Klang  is  already  a thing  of  the  past,  and  that 
even  a Government  of  archangels  could  not  mend 
that  matter,  not  even  by  digging  drains  the  size 
of  canals.  The  land  boom  at  Klaug  has  been  ex- 
posed  chiefly  by  Measr§.  Forsythe  a,pd  Christie,  two 
planters  of  Ceylon  now  in  Singapore.  It  seems  that 
the  local  agents  of  these  gentlemen  bought  for 
them  by  auction  large  areas  of  Klang  land,  intended 
for  coffee  planting.  Now  that  Messrs.  Forsythe  and 
Christie  have  seen  the  land,  they  have  arranged  to 
surrender  it  back  to  Government,  asking  that  the 
Government  will  be  so  good  as  to  let  them  select 
other  land  in  exchange. 
It  appears  that  the  alleged  coffee  land  at  Klang,  is 
land  upon  which  coffee  cannot  grow.  It  is  peat 
land;  and  coffee  will  not  grow  on  peat.  Still  the 
laud  is  not  without  its  uses.  If  it  be  left  alone  for 
twenty-five  thousand  years  it  will  probably  develop 
into  a magnificent  coal  bed. 
In  plain  truth,  the  laud  boom  at  Klang  arose  from  a 
mistake,  a ludicrous  mistake.  A Malay  had  a small 
coffee  garden  there,  and  it  produced  some  excellent 
coffee  in  wonderful  quantities  ; and  since  the  surface 
of  the  Malay’s  garden  was  peat,  people  jumped  at  the 
conclusion  that  coffee  should  be  grown  on  peat.  But 
it  happened  that  only  on  top  of  that  Malay  garden 
was  there  peat  ; below  that,  the  land  was  an  excellent 
blue  clay.  The  land  that  was  purchased  by  auction 
has  not  merely  a surface  of  peat,  but  it  has  20  feet  of 
peat,  and  the  man  who  attempts  to  grow  coffee  on  it 
would  fail.  There  is  a trifle  of  good  land  similar  to  the 
Malay’s  garden,  which  has  been  picked  up  by  Tamboo- 
samy  Pillai  and  a Chinaman  ; but  the  rest  of  the  land 
is  said  to  be  quite  unfit  for  coffee. 
Probably  the  Government  will  make  no  great  diffi- 
culty about  taking  back  the  land  and  letting  the  un- 
happy buyers  chose  other  soil. 
So  ends  the  Klang  land  boom. 
The  same  paper  appends  the  following  further  re' 
marks  : — 
With  reference  to  the  statements  contained  in  the 
Selangor  Correspondent’s  letter,  printed  in  our  issue 
of  yesterday,  and,  the  remarks  founded  thereon,  we 
are  informed  that  these  are  wrong  so  far  as  they 
apply  to  the  lands  owned  by  the  Ceylon  planters, 
^on  which  work  has  now  been  permanently  stopped. 
The  Selangor  Government  may  oe  guilty  of  not  car- 
rying out  the  drainage  scheme  promised  and  relied 
upon,  but  had  they  done  so,  it  would  not  have  saved 
the  lands ; and  tho  blame  attached  to  this  unfortu- 
nate venture  cannot  be  saddled  on  the  Govern- 
ment, but  rather  upon  the  misjudgment  of  local 
planters,  who  to  the  last  remained  blind  to  what  the 
owners  of  the  lands  consider  to  be  conditions  of  so 
which  carried  failure  written  across  them — drains  or 
no  drains. 
The  Singapore  Free  Press,  after  describing  the  hope- 
lessly peaty  condition  of  the  abandoned  land, 
remarks : — 
The  promptness  with  which  the  position  was  recog- 
nised by  the  chief  investors  concerned,  has  probably 
saved  them  and  others  from  heavy  future  losses.  Other 
men  who  have  likewise  ventured  in  on  some  of  the 
adjacent  bloclcs  arc  likely  with  more  or  less  alacrity 
to  follow  their  example  and  throw  up  their  newly 
acquired  holdings.  It  is  indeed  fortunate  that  the 
chief  losses  are  falling  upon  well-to-do  outside  in- 
vestors, and  not  so  much  upon  the  younger  men, 
who  might  have  ventured  all  they  had  upon  an  enter- 
prise that  would  shortly  have  spelt  ruin  to  their  plant- 
ing fortunes. 
We  understand  that  what  appears  above  only  applies 
in  the  main  to  the  group  of  contiguous  blocks  recently 
put  up  by  Government,  and  probably  to  some  other 
adjacent  areasin  the  Klang  district.  In  some  places  the 
layer  is  thin  and  the  whitish  clay  soil  can  be  reached 
at  a depth  that  would  not  hinder  planting.  This 
latter  applies  to  some  of  the  native  clearings. 
This  extremely  regrettable  fiasco  affecting  a large 
group  of  blocks  of  320  acres  each  or  thereabouts  throws 
upon  the  Selangor  Government  the  task  of  trying  to 
undo  the  bad  impression  that  even  the  above  un- 
coloured statement  of  facts  is  bound  to  create.  And 
as  far  as  wo  can  learn  it  is  understood  that  the  sym- 
Eathies  of  the  Selangor  Government,  now  that  it  has 
ad  the  various  evidence  laid  before  it,  are  with 
those  who  have  been  so  greatly  disappointed  at  the 
result  of  the  more  critical  inspection  of  the  soil  of 
planting  blocks  sold  in  February  of  last  year,— Local 
“ Times,’’  March  16. 
