385 
A little consideration will suffice to show that for the pioneer 
and the planter with a moderate capital, some form of catch-crop 
raising is indispensable. Years ago, Mr. Tan Chay Yan, of Malacca, 
planted rubber on an extensive scale, in the midst of tapioca. At 
that time, so little was known of the possibilities of Hevea that no 
one would have ventured to clear four thousand acres and plant them 
with Hevea on the clean-weeding system. Even the astute Chinese 
of Malacca ridiculed the pioneer, but six years later they saw through 
their folly, and wildly imitated what they had previously condemned. 
It can safely be said that without the aid of Tapioca not 10% of the 
rubber land of Malacca could have been brought into existence. It is 
only necessary to mention the Malacca Rubber Plantations, Pegoh, 
and Merlimau estates, among a host of others. In this connection I 
like to mention the name of Sir Walter Egerton, to whom the Chinese 
of Malacca are greatly indebted for sympathy and encouragement in 
the early years of rubber planting. The colony owes to his foresight 
and commojisense what success we have achieved in rubber cultiva- 
tion in Malacca. I have purposely digressed a little in order to show 
that agricultural critics are not always correct, especially when they 
form opinions on mere theory. 
In a special article in the Straits Times of August l6th, 1910, the 
writer absolutely condemns pine-apples as a catch crop. ‘‘They 
ought never to be interpianted " is his dictum. Now, it is clear he 
was prejudiced against pine-apples because he believed “ this form of 
culture is a heavy drain upon the soil." But, curiously, he mentions 
gambier and pepper as suitable catch-crops and apparently approved 
of coffee. His reference to the Chinese planting tapioca as catch- 
crop, “since the boom ” is scarcely correct. In my opinion, pine- 
apples constitute a very convenient, suitable and excellent catch-crop 
under certain well-defined conditions. It is pure absurd nonsense all 
this talk of a drain upon the soil. Every kind of growth is a drain 
upon the soil. Perhaps clean weeding is as great a drain upon the 
soil as anything that can be done to the land. It is the same with 
coconuts. Cultivators remove everything and replace nothing and 
then cry “coconuts must be heavily manured!" But a little know- 
ledge is enough to show that if only copra is made and taken away— 
we have removed from the plantation only a form of oil or hydro- 
carbon, which the palm has manufactured from the water and the 
carbonic acid gas — substances equally inexhaustible and abundant 
both in the soil and the air. Likewise, in the case of pine-apples, the 
fruit is mainly a mass of water and saccharine matter — the solid sub- 
stance of the soil taken up being used chiefly to form the root-stock 
and leaves. Comparatively speaking, weight per weight, we take 
away much more from the soil in the case of gambier, pepper, coffee 
theobroma, peas, beans, indigo, cardamoms and ginger than in the 
case of pine-apples, bananas or tapioca. Therefore, provided we 
restore back the ash containing parts of the plants such as the leaves, 
trunks, and branches, we cannot be said to drain the land. 
