SAGO. 
311 
Low as the price of sago Isas fallen, we need hardly point 
out, after all the data which we have placed before our read¬ 
ers, that it is still much above its natural amount. It is not 
an article which can ever displace the cereals, or which we 
could wish to be anywhere substituted for them, but it ought 
to be produced in an exportable state at such a price as to be 
within reach of the poorer classes, whenever a diminution in 
the supplies of rice or corn deprives them of a sufficient 
quantity of their ordinary food. This could easily be accom¬ 
plished by Europeans possessed of a little mechanical skill, 
who would combine manufactories and plantations, and thus 
save the present enormous waste of labour and raw material. 
25 cents per picul seems to be about the natural price oi sago 
flour properly prepared at the plantation for exportation, and 
this is nearly equivalent to 10 pounds for a penny. We have 
seen that at present the poor Sakai get only about a half¬ 
penny for that quantity. 
Singapore itself is well adapted for sago. There are consi¬ 
derable tracts of marshy land, at present lying waste, in all of 
which sago would grow well, for it is in the very same kind of 
soil that it flourishes in the neighbouring islands along the Su¬ 
matra coast. Arrow and other roots yielding starch are now 
cultivated with profit, and as one manufactory will serve for 
the preparation of all the varieties of farina, it would be 
found advantageous to unite the culture of these roots with 
that of sago. As all the marshy vallies in the island are 
bounded by low hill ranges, tracts of land adapted for the 
purpose could readily be selected. 
J. R. L. 
Note on the mode of growth and productiveness 
of the sago tree . 
The notices in the above paper of the mode in which the 
sago tree extends itself not being so definite as could be de¬ 
sired, we visited three groups of sago, one on a moist clay soil 
at the foot of Syed Ally's hill, and the others in a soft vegeta¬ 
ble soil behind the village of Kallang The first is a dense, 
impenetrable thicket of sago plants, each of which rises di¬ 
rectly from the ground. Three stems ascend above the mass 
of leaves, a few younger plants send up leaves about 15 feet 
high from stoles about a foot in breadth, and the whole space 
between them is filled with younger shoots as close to each 
other as they can grow. The Kallang trees present a differ- 
