46 
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“adapting a large acreage of the low-lying country in the State to the 
“ cultivation of paddy ” — both proposals involving a considerable charge on 
public funds, 
12. it may be accepted that in Perak, Selangor, Sungei Ujong and 
Pahang there exist large tracts of flat alluvial land bordering the sea coast, 
which are available for the cultivation of rice, and which are now lying unde- 
veloped owing to want of population and other causes. The inland districts 
need not be taken into consideration. Up the country, rice-lands are only 
found here and there in valleys not far from the rivers, or in the depressions 
in undulating tracts. The areas so available for cultivation inland are com- 
paratively insignificant ( see however a description of an inland district in 
No. VIII of the Perak Reports ), whereas on the coast they extend to tens of 
thousands of acres. 
13. The problem is how to get this waste land turned into rice-producing 
districts, and before it can be hoped to solve this with the help of any of 
the suggestions made by the Residents of the Native States and their 
Officers, a great deal more statistical information is required. As far as I am 
aware no good description of Malay and Chinese agriculture in the Straits 
Settlements has been produced since 1836, when Colonel James Low of 
the Madras Army, then in charge of Province Wellesley as Superintendent, 
published a “ Dissertation on the Soil and Agriculture of Penang and Pro- 
vince Wellesley.” Although his descriptions, written nearly sixty years 
ago, do not applv in all respects to the cultivation of to-day, and although 
the customs described are those of the Malays of Kedah, and the statistics 
are those of 1825-1833, still it has seemed to me that Colonel Low’s 
book gives so much valuable information, that I subjoin extensive extracts 
from it. 
14. When extensive emigration schemes are put forward without 
statements of the cost of the passage and temporary maintenance of emigrants, 
and irrigation schemes without plans and approximate estimates, and when 
exemption from land-revenue is advised though the recorded experience of 
competent land-revenue officers in the past is against it, the careful study 
and calculation upon which Colonel Low's remarks are based may well be 
recommended for imitation. 
15. The next thirteen pages are from Colonel Low’s work * : — - 
“ Rice is the grain chiefly cultivated in the Straits of Malacca. On the Island of 
Penang, the field is confined, owing to the generally hilly nature of the surface; but 
Province Wellesley which is an alluvial district, offers a wider range, and to it, there- 
fore, the following observations will principally apply. The area of this province has 
not yet been fully ascertained owing to the incorrectness of all the maps of it, these 
having been constructed when it was in a jungly state, and to the irregular line of its 
boundary. But judging from a series of triangles which have been taken, preparatory 
to a more correct plan, the area cannot well be less than one hundred and twenty 
square miles. How much of this superficies is well fitted for rice cultivation will be 
known perhaps in a very few years hence, when all the saw ah land shall have been 
cleared of forest ; until when it can only be generally asserted that several detached 
patches remain to be located, some of which consist of upwards of 500 orlongs. The 
Malays of this Peninsula are strongly attached to agriculture. The unmaritime 
Malay could not exist without his bendang or rice field — and to the preparation of it, 
every other passion, for a while, gives way. His enthusiasm in the work is such, that 
a positive and greater gain could hardly bribe him from it; With such a predisposi- 
tion, the Malay is a useful subject, where the cultivation of grain and the obtaining of 
those supplies, which naturally arise out of or follow that cultivation, are desirable 
objects. Beyond this, Malayan agriculture is deficient in method, too often slovenly,. 
* The spelling of Malay words has been altered, and the foot-notes are new. 
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