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wherein it might be raised. Maize likes a good soil, but it does not 
remove much from it ; and it permits cultivation to be continued 
while it is growing, 
Ragi. 
The third cereal for Malaya is perhaps ragi — Eleusine coracana : 
but after rice and maize none is worth much consideration. 
Ragi is grown in India on poor lands, and in the Himalaya 
largely fulfils the function of furnishing beer. Elsewhere in dry 
seasons and over dry areas the quantity grown increases, a fact which 
speaks against a wide use of it here. It is on the ground for six 
months. 
Sorghum. 
Sorghum holds in India a very much higher place than ragi, 
but for areas where there is no forest ; and in them at harvest-time 
the air resounds with the din of boys acting as scarecrows, or the 
incautious passer-by may find himself bombarded with clay pellets 
intended for the flocks of small birds which demand such a large toll 
out of the crops. In forested areas sorghum is rarely grown and 
then in the less productive feathery panicled races in small quantity. 
The smaller millets would only he grown here by Sakai s and 
the like. 
Sugar. 
The second group of food-stuffs on which the Peninsula pays so 
greatly is sugar. But sugar-making has unfortunately recently died 
out for economic reasons, and it cannot be made to pay until labour 
is again cheaper. 
It is believed that there were Chinese cultivating sugar-cane in 
the area, now Province Wellesley, before the founding of the 
Settlement of Penang. And it is recorded that in 1800 labour bad 
become too expensive for it to pay. Then again the situation 
improved and in 1836 there were Chinese in the Province who, on 
quite a considerable scale, made sugar either black or clayed 
according to the state of tlie market which they watched very 
closely. From Province Wellesley the industry spread into Krian: 
but it never really developed so as to send its produce beyond the 
local markets. And after one big effort at working with the best of 
machinery sugar making died out. 
The modern sugar industry is a wonderfully developed one : 
efficiency to the last degree is needed : big central factories pay best 
because of the economy in working : every advantage has to be 
sought for; the cane must come to hand in steady and adequate 
supplies, and the by-products must find a sale. Then again very 
much of the sugar produced comes to the market with tariff 
protection or artificial aid : and from all this I do not see any way of 
reducing the sugar bill of the Peninsula. That cane which is grown 
for eating seems eminently suited for the purpose, and the 
introduction of new races is hardly called for at the moment. 
