9 
The Kulim irrigation has benefited the district where no acres 
have been planted out of 250 irrigated. The rest will be planted in 
1909. There are upwards of 300 acres of Para rubber planted. 
Quite a number of Malays have planted Hevea brasiliensis in small 
patches and it is doing well. For estates Malay labour is preferred 
to Chinese or Indian labour whilst it is of the greatest benefit to the 
neighbouring villages. 
(, Supplement to the Perak Government Gazette , November 2Q , 1909). 
TILLED AND UNTILLED SOIL 
The operation of tillage has, for its primary object, the stirring 
and loosening of the soil. When soil-particles are massed loosely, 
as in a tilled field or garden, spaces exist between them, and these 
spaces permit of free movement of air. If the particles are packed 
together tightly, as in pasture land where the soil cannot be loosened, 
there is comparatively little space between the particles, and conse- 
quently the amount of air in the soil is but small. All grassland, 
as compared with that under tillage, is insufficiently aerated, and in 
most cases the older the sod the less well ventilated it is ; for, as 
time passes, the soil-particles become more closely packed. The 
ileal soil may be compared to a sponge, not only because of its 
capacity for holding nutritive solutions, but because of its perme- 
ability to air. There can be no question that the high productiveness 
of well-cultivated soils is due largely to the greater amount of air 
available for the roots. 
The presence of air ensures both oxygen and carbonic acid in 
the soil. Oxygen is essential to the growth and well-being of the 
roots of plants, no less than to the aerial parts. Carbonic acid plays 
an important, though indirect, part in ensuring soil fertility by 
bringing inorganic materials into solution and thus augmenting the 
supply of mineral food-substances. 
Beneficial micro-organisms are found in greater numbers and 
are better distributed in a cultivated soil than in compact and 
uncultivated soils. These lower forms of life, like the higher forms, 
are profoundly affected, both afe to their individual well-being and as 
to their multiplication, by such conditions as food, air, moisture and 
temperature, all of which factors are better regulated by cultivation. 
One of the object of tillage is to convert the soil into a suitable 
living place for micro-organisms through the increased humus, good 
drainage, ventilation and higher temperature. It is not unreason- 
able, therefore, to assume that the greater number and better condition 
of the micro-organisms in a tilled orchard contributes to the well- 
being of the fruit trees. 
There is evidence to show that all plants, to a greater or less 
; degree, so change the soil in which they grow as to make it wholly or 
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