AGRICULTURAL BULLETIN 
OF- THE 
STRAITS 
AND 
FEDERATED MALA Y S T A T E S . 
No. ii.] NOVEMBER, 1903. [Vol. IL 
THE CULTIVATION OF COTTON IN THE 
FEDERATED MALAY STATES. 
Kuala Lumpur, 24th September , mjoj. 
Sir, — I have the honour to address you on the subject of the 
Cultivation of Cotton in the Federated Malay States. 
2. There are probably in these States ten million acres suitable 
for agriculture, and, under correction, I would suggest that not 
more than half a million are under cultivation. The present would 
therefore seem to be a suitable time for Government to indicate to 
planters — European and native — its intention to encourage more 
particularly the growth of such products as are unlikely to undergo 
alarming fluctuations in price. 
3. Consideration of the nature of the agricultural produce now 
exported from these States will show that, independent of these 
reasons, the planting industry is likely to be in the future, as it has 
been in the past, subject to the losses caused by collapse of market 
prices. 
4. As an example of a crop that has been cultivated not with- 
out commercial success but never with any well-grounded assurance 
of continued success, I would instance pepper. It is, I believe, no 
exaggeration to say that an increase for two years of 10 per cent, 
in the world’s supply of pepper generally leads, other things being- 
equal, to a decrease of 50 per cent, in its price. Consumers are not 
induced by a fall in price to increase their consumption. Thus if 
the supply exceeds ordinary requirements merchants naturally fear 
that the surplus which must be given away, destroyed, or sold at 
any price, will render purchases at any figure approximating ordi- 
nary prices, a very hazardous transaction. 
5. The factors that obviously render market prices reasonably 
free from fluctuation are : (a) enormous and insistent demands met 
by a huge supply, and (£) demands that increase inversely with the 
price. As regards (a) the imports of raw cotton into the United 
Kingdom alone have, roughly speaking, an average value of 
.£40,000,000 — about six times the total value ol all the tin exported 
