49 
Estimated yearly consumption of Rice. 
PENANG. 
By the fixed and fluctuating population, exclusive of 
troops 
By 200 horses, and by cattle &c. ... 
koyans 
) > 
3’5 00 
280 
3J 80 
PROVINCE WELLESLEY. 
By fixed and fluctuating population 
Seed grain on Penang, 3^ koyans paddy, or ... 
Do. in Province Wellesley or 75 koyans of paddy, 
being in rice 
Loss 
3,37 s 
T — 
I4 
37* 
5 
Total, estimated consumption, koyans , 7,20 2 \ 
Rice land in Penang yields a return which may not be averaged higher than 75 
fold — or nearly 300 gantangs of paddy for each orlong ; but it has been considered 
advisable to rate it here at 6o-fold only. I he rice land, or bendang, of Province 
Wellesley gives an average return of 117=2 fold ; the maximum degree of productive- 
ness being six hundred gantangs of paddy for an orlong (or 1^ acre) of vt ell-flooded, 
alluvial land, or 150-fold; which number of gantangs are equal to 300 gantangs of 
rice, weighing nearly 4,520 English pounds. 1 he present average produce has been 
very mode> ately estimated in this account at 470 gantangs the orlong, of paddy. 
The quantity of seeds i n variably allotted for an orlong of land is 4 gantangs. . In the 
estimate of future produce as available for the support of the local population, 480 
gantangs an orlong have been assumed as the net average produce, this increase 
being admissible on the score of the improving productiveness of the land. The 
average produce now derivable, as above specified, from one square mile of bendang 
land will be 248^ koyans of paddy, or 142^- koyans of rice, affording food sufficient 
for the support of 1,915 souls; so that were every orlong to have its complement, the 
population of this Province might be more than doubled without outrunning the means 
of subsistence. Prospectively viewed, the number which a square mile will be suffi- 
cient to support may be rated at 1,936 souls. In Siam, forty-fold is estimated a good 
average produce, t At Tavoy, on the Tenasserim Coast, the maximum rate of produc- 
tiveness of the rice land was, in 1825 — and is still believed to be — nearly the same as 
the average of Siam ; while the average was only 20-fold, at which last rate the pro- 
duce of a square mile would support about 1,000 souls. There the return for seed 
sown is not only thus small, compared with the return for the quantity sown here, but 
to obtain the above average of 20-fold, or 260 gantangs of paddy from one orlong of 
land, it would be requisite to sow thirteen gantangs of seed. The difference in favor 
of this local Malayan husbandry is therefore 219 gantangs of paddy for each orlong 
cultivated — besides the profit arising to the latter by the saving of labour. To obtain, 
on the Tavoy Coast, the dear return of 470 gantangs of paddy, — being the average 
above stated for Province Wellesley, including land newly cleared, and not yet become 
fully productive — it would be required to cultivate 1 & 4-6th orlong and to sow 23! 
gantangs of seed. 
The total present population of the latter Province could be supported on the 
average quantity of rice raised on 24 square miles of superficies; while on the Coast 
alluded to, an area of about 43 square miles will be required to supply food to such a 
population. 
The very superior fertility of the Province Wellesley soil depends on its alluvial 
composition, and on its being level and easily accessible to water — and in some locali- 
ties, on its being comparatively new; but this last circumstance does not seem to 
operate as might be supposed : for some land, which has been longest under cultiva- 
tion, or upwards of 20 years, yields the largest crops. 
The soil of Mautama or Martaban Province, of which Moulmein formed apart, 
seemed to me, while travelling over its plains in 1825, to approach nearest to the 
* In Burma, the average productiveness of the acre is rather more than 30 bushels of paddy. Report on 
Revenue Administration, British Burma, for 1881-82. This is roughly 200 gantangs to the acre or 266 
gantangs to the o'-long. 
t In Buckle's “ History of Civilization,” ch. ii, there is a note to the following effect: 1 
In Egypt, according to Savary. rice ‘‘ produres eighty bus) els for one.” — Loudon’s Encyclop. of Agricul- 
ture, p. 173. In Tenasserim the yield i, from 80 to 100.— Low’s Hist, of Tenasserim in Journ. As. Soc., Ill, 
29. In S. America 250 fold according to Spix and Martins ( Travels in Brazil , II, 79 ), or from 200 to 300 
according to SoutheY ( History of Brazil , III, pp. 658, 806). The lowest estimate given by M. Meyen is 
forty fold, the highest which is marsh lice in the Philippine Islands 400 fold.— Meyen’s Geography of Plants , 
l8 4 b, P- Son 
