141 
■ e n t too valuable and expensive for use in this way, though, waste 
uts might be disposed of to the paper-manufacturers with profit. 
The fibre has long been used for nets and cordage, as well as 
or sail-cloth, the sails of several of the well-known racing yachts 
being ma.e of it. It is also used for lighter fabrics, such as silk 
scarves, Tresses, umbrellas, bibb ' hs, lace, etc. From the 
various’ uses to whicn Tt 'cue, be put, i vril oe • iders tood 
that the demand is practically unlimited, but it is necessary that 
the fibre should be produced clean at moderate prices, that is to 
say, about £30 per ton. If this can be done, and there seems no 
reason why it should not, ramie should ere long be extensively 
ultivated and exported from this region. 
The waste leaves of the plant form an excellent fodder for 
attle, which are very fond of it. The Chinese also, by boiling 
hem, prepare a black jelly, of which there is a considrable sale in 
Singapore and elsewhere. 
NOTES ON SUGAR CULTIVATION. 
The sugar-cane is cultivated largely in many parts of the 
Peninsula, for native consumption almost everywhere, and for 
he manufacture of sugar and rum in Province Wellesley and 
3 erak, and though the sugar trade of the New World is now 
lmost at a standstill, that of the Malay Peninsula seems to be 
till thoroughly remunerative. Its market is the Eastern region, 
Az., China and Japan, which are not affected by the beet sugar 
rade which has done so much to injure the trade of Europe. The 
lepreciation of silver has also done much to assist the trade in 
his region. At the same time, n view of the collapse of the 
Vestern sugar trade, it is important to note any disease or pests 
stacking the sugar-cane which appear here, and to suggest any 
nethods of eradicating them before they attain proportions too 
^reat to be easily dealt with. 
Few cultivated plants have as extensive a literature as sugar, 
ts cultivation and manufacture have been written about most 
ixhaustively, and there are plenty of well-known books on the 
ubject, but till lately comparatively little has been written 
.bout its diseases and the insect pests to which it is liable. 
As too often happens with crops, so long as the cultivator is 
.laking a reasonable profit on the estate, he is apt to overlook 
ny diseases which may occur, but when the times are hard and 
he pests become an important factor in the depression, he endea- 
-ours, sometimes in vain, to defeat an enemy which has gained 
trengtli by his neglect. 
It must be always remembered, especially in tropical coun- 
ies, that plants do not naturally grow in such large quantities 
ogether as is necessary for cultivation, and that this aggrega- 
ion of plants of one kind renders them far more liable to disease 
Iran if they were grown in a more isolated manner. 
Sugar again is exceptionally grown in this way. The fields are 
necessarily of very large size on flat low ground usually with 
iardly a tree in sight which may give a resting place to the birds. 
