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land which has had time to recover by fallow or rotation of crops. 
(b) That it is not tolerant of shade, (c) That it must he planted in 
fairly large areas to minimize the depredations of pests, (d) That 
planting has to be timed to catch the rains. («) That the yield to be 
obtained under. the best of conditions could be estimated at 300 
gantangs of padi per acre — i.e ,, approximately, 150 gan tangs of rice, 
which on the basis of six gantangs of rice per cooly per month 
worked out to the index of one cooly consuming the produce of 
half acre of land. He stated that he had an open mind about the 
matter but that any success would he thought be largely dependent 
on the extent of co-operative effort. Turning to the question of wet 
rice he could not express optimism concerning the results to be 
obtained from planting “ wet-rice ” in swamps. He stated that the 
only way to make swamps produce a satisfactory crop was to make 
conditions such that the land might be swamp no more. He showed 
how certain areas in this country produced rice in quantity per acre 
second only to Spain and indicated the ways by which production 
could be still further increased. 
Another speaker remarked that fruit cultivation on estates 
was difficult, owing to the theft of fruits by coolies when tlie fruits 
came to maturity. 
The Chairman said that Mr. Spring’s paper was prepared in 
order to get the views of planters as to whether it would be possible 
to improve conditions, but as so few planters were present, he 
did not think it was any use continuing the discussion. He would 
therefore call upon Mr. R. W. Munro to read his paper on “ Liberian 
Coffee.” 
