The first two or three years o( his work would necessarily be 
ereatly in the way of experiment, as he would not he able to 
mand large supplies of raw material ; and his factory would be more 
or the lines of an experimental laboratory than a commeroal under- 
taking. It is possible even that his experiments and the result ot 
h work, if put on the market, would be sufficient ".denceto in- 
duce members of the commercial public to start an independent fa - 
tory, in which case the ends of Government would be met ."“h it 
further trouble; but if not, and the experiments warranted it. Gov- 
ernment could start a real factory, to be ultimately offered to the 
public as a going concern. This enterprise would not be ver> costly 
for the first thre? years, I think probably £1.000 a year would corer 
everything. 
g Fibre . — About the year 1890, when I was stationed at 1 am- 
p in ; I interested myself with the late Mr M. W. Baird m inves- 
tigating the matter of extracting the fibre from the banana (Pisan 
Karoh), which at that time covered many hundred acres of land at 
the hill foots, which had been abandoned by tapioca planters. A 
parcel of fibre was abstracted by the convicts under my order*, 
weighing about half a hundredweight, this Mr. BAIRD sent home 
to a firm on Mark Lane for valuation, with the result that it was 
said to be worth only about two pounds per ton less than the be>t 
Manila hemp on the market. Enquiries were made ot a firm in 
Coventry which supplied scutching machinery for the Hax trade in 
the north of Ireland, resulting in the information that a scutching 
machine requiring two horse power to actuate it would cost a out 
£20. We found that power to work two such machines could be 
procured from a Felton wheel erected on a stream coming oft the 
Tampin hill. 
In 1891 when I was at home on leave, Mr. Baird also being in 
England, we carried our investigations further, by procuring some 
old banana stems from Kew gardens and testing them in the Coven- 
try machine, which with slight modifications did the work very well. 
And Mr. Birch, then Resident of Sungei Ujong, promised to give 
every facility to the undertaking. The above remarks arc w ritten 
to show that a three years’ experiment in producing fibre, not only 
from the wild banana, but also from other fibre-producing: plants, 
would not be very expensive, and might lead to the establishment 
of a very important industry. 
9. Cattle and Sheep.— I think that one of the most important 
matters Government could take up, and one which would do more 
good than most other ways of spending available balances, would 
be the improving of the quality and the quantity of cattle in the 
States ; at the present time transport, whether by rail or by road, 
is very expensive, and beef and mutton are both very dear. 
There are in all the States very large areas of useless lalang land, 
than which there is no better grazing ground for caitle ; and I be- 
lieve that when the herbage has been improved bv cattle grazing it 
would be equally good for sheep ; during my ten years’ residence at 
Tampin, many acres of lalang near the village were very greatly 
