SAGO. 
2 97 
THE SAGO OF SUMATRA* 
Low marshy situations shut out, but at no great distance 
from the sea, and well watered by fresh water seem most 
productive. The soil io such situations to the depth of se¬ 
veral feet is generally a flaccid mould, composed chiefly of 
decayed vegetable matter and extremely pervious to water; 
below the above depth a stratum of marine formation gene- 
rallyexists. According to Raffles, on Java this tree is found 
only in a few low and marshy situations, and the preparation 
of sago “ from the pith is not known to the inhabitants.’* 
Marsden says that sago is but little used by the Sumatrans, 
and Crawfurd presumes that in this, or the Western part 
of the Archipelago, the sago palm is an exotic. Our 
enquiries have been unavailing in the attempt to_ discover 
it as indigenous in our neighbourhood, and We feci confident 
that it does not exist in the native wild state to the westward 
of Borneo, 
The best sago produced in our vicinity, is from the Islands 
of Appong and Panjang, which form the East bank of Bre¬ 
wers straits or properly Salat Panjang—and next in quality, 
is that from the rivers Mandha, Katanian, Goung, Egal, Plan- 
dok, and Anak Sirka, lying between the Kampar and Indra- 
giri rivers, on Sumatra, or Pulo Percha, as it is called by the 
Malays. Of least value is the produce of the islands of Buru, 
Ungah, and Kundor, in the Straits of Dryon or Salat Duri. 
The sago palm is found in several other places in small 
quantities, but is seldom cut down by the lazy possessors of it, 
to whom it probably descended through along line of equally 
sluggish ancestors, from some Inchi of zaman daulu , who had 
better notions when he planted it. The nature of the soil 
in the places we have mentioned is very similar, all of them 
being deep bogs, next to impassable to one unaccustomed to 
such walking. 
Cutting down and burning the jungle is all the prepara¬ 
tion required previous to planting the palm, at about 5 
fathoms apart, which is best done from the seed, a small 
black nut, about the size of a pullet’s egg. 
Plantations have been tried from the suckers, but the in¬ 
jury sustained by their roots in the separation from the parent 
stem has invariably retarded their growth above a year. 
From seven to ten years is the time it takes for the tree 
to bear fruit, when planted from the seed in the first instance ; 
the pith commences generally at about the age of 6 or 7 
* From the Singapore Chronicle, 
