5 86 
ratals, with the result that for the last 47 years they have been ex- 
tremely remiss regarding path planting. Unless there is strong 
legislation and a strong hand to enforce it, the cultivation o p 
I beg to point out to Your Highness and the Resident-General 
that Siam and Rangoon resemble the parents, and the countries of 
the Malays the children. If the child does not in some degree help 
his parents he is accounted absolutely wicked. It avails nothing 
though he be ten times as wealthy and great. 
Your Highness who has reigned for five years, and Your Honour, 
who for ten years, as Resident and Resident-General, has cause 
English justice and prosperity to prevail in Selangor, will be con- 
ferring a great benefit upon the people by a consideration of the 
rice question. I ask then that Yotir Majesty and the esi en 
General will settle the method of rice cultivation and enforce it 
upon the Malays by a new law, providing penalties and fines tor 
evasion. _ . , 
I trust that my dissertation will be excused. I have not spoken 
for the mere sake of giving my history, but because in my time the 
price of rice has risen from $1-5° t° $5 ^°> more than three times 
as much. For the last three or four years the price has been steadily 
rising. This year I have suffered heavily, for last year when I had 
got my money from the office and paid off my debts for food there 
still remained $20 or #30 ; this year only $1 or $2 are left over. 
Every kind of necessary has risen in price, and the trouble and 
anxiety resulting therefrom have emboldened me to approach you 
on this subject. . RAJA BOT. 
Klang, 22nd A 14 gust, 1902. 
THE CULTIVATION OF ORCHIDS FOR 
AMATEURS. 
Almost everybody that has a garden in this Colony tries to grow 
a few orchids, 'but the success attained in the majority of eases, is 
bv no means commensurate to the interest and energy shown. Dis- 
appointment is often felt when the plants do grow and come into 
flower to find that they are small and insignificant. This is only 
what is to be expected considering that most of those grown' are 
local species of which not one in ten kinds have large showy flowers. 
To obtain these it is necessary to go farther afield, and having found 
out the cood things, and how to successfully grow them, to increase 
their number ip preference to insignificant species that are mainly 
of interest to botanist. To keep the majority of Orchids alive for 
a considerable time is by no means difficult, but to successfully grow 
and flower them is quite another matter. Few plants are in fact 
more difficult to kill outright, but to grow them well requires a cer- 
tain amount of knowledge of their requirements and a good deal of 
patience and perseverance. Even when this is given, and the most 
done that can be done, the rest) It is sometimes far from satisfactory 
