707 
AGRICULTURE IN MALACCA. 
By F. L. Baumgarten Esq, 
Land in Malacca is cultivated entirely by the native population. 
No Europeans, or their descendants, appear to be inclined to invest 
their capital in agricultural speculation : probably from the unfa¬ 
vorable terms upon which Leases are granted by Government, and 
the failure incurred more than twenty five years ago by parties 
who had undertaken the cultivation of Pepper and Coffee upon 
extensive scales. 
By an order of Government, announced by a notification from 
Mr Bonham in 1840, the terms upon which lands were to be 
granted were, “ rent free for two years ; from the second to the , 
fifth year at 4 annas per acre } from the fifth to the tenth year 
8 annas per acre ; from the tenth to the twentieth year one Rupee,” 
and the lessee to have the option of renewal for thirty years, on 
payment of an annual rent for the additional period, at the rate of 
three rupees per acre ! while at the sister settlement of Singapore 
land may be purchased from Government in fee at 5 rupees per 
acre. As a further clog, he is required to agree that if he should 
fail to pay his rent, or should abandon his ground for the space of * 
one year, it shall, without any formal process, revert to the East 
India Company. 
So unwilling have speculators been to take out clearance leases 
on these terms that, although eight years have elapsed since their 
promulgation, not a single lease had been taken for agricultural 
purposes, excepting for small patches of ground near the town and 
along the sea-shore, many, if not all of w'hich, were no sooner taken 
than abandoned ; such for instance are the patches of land between 
KJebang Besar and Tanjong Kling. This notification, although 
it had not the effect of deterring an increasing population from 
squatting on the land, had a different result from that intended. 
Extensive tracts have been cleared by Chinese and Malays without 
even obtaining permission from the superintendent, and when called 
upon to pay rent after their plantations have become productive, 
have entered into an agreement with Government to pay a fixed 
rate per annum for a period of twenty years, commencing from the 
date of the agreement, at the end of which the tenants would have 
the option of a paying tenth for ever, or entering into a fresh agree¬ 
ment with their Landlords, who acknowledge that they possess 
only “the right of taking for the use of Government one tenth part 
of the produce of all lands in the settlement of Malacca,” so that 
the Notification of 1840, so far as it concerns the leasing out of 
land for agricultural purposes, has been a mere dead letter from the 
time of its promulgation up to this period. With respect to the 
cultivation of the sugar cane, however, grants upon better terms were 
applied for, and directed to be issued by the Bengal Government • 
these were to be rent free for five years, and thereafter to bear a 
rent of four annas per acre, so long as there existed a sugar estate 
upon the land, but even these were destined not to take effect— 
