AGRICULTURE IN MALACCA. 
710 
to an extraordinary extent, and with surprizing success. The 
practice of furrow draining is now widely diffused over the north 
and east of England ; and it lias been introduced, within the last 
half dozen years, into this part of the country (Scotland) and is 
carried on upon a scale that will hardly be believed by those not 
acquainted with the facts. Landlords and tenants are everywhere 
availing themselves of this new discovery/’ In addition to this, 
I would add that it would prepare the way to the introduction of 
bullock instead of buffalo draft cattle, the latter of which have 
of late years been peculiarly subject to the sweeping attack of 
the murrain. Furrow-draining ought to be solely dependent on 
the cultivators themselves, but surely we cannot in justice call 
upon them to contribute even a portion of their labour for the 
improvement of the general revenue without a remuneration, and 
yet that this will be "the result of their labour nobody will dispute. 
But here, on the contrary, is a willing peasantry offering every 
assistance they are able to render in draining the country, asking 
nothing in return but a gantang of coarse rice each man at the 
close of the day, worth about six cents, (this is indispensably 
necessary, as they are obliged to earn their livelihood by daily 
labour, and unless they are provided with a meal at the close 
of the day, they cannot afford to bestow any time in the work 
of general improvement) and so convinced are the Municipal 
Committee of the great necessity of drainage from repeated failure 
of the paddy crops, that although no present benefit is derivable 
to the fund, they have offered to co-operate with the government, 
by undertaking to pay one third of the whole expense. 
Anticipating, however, that the true interest of Government, and 
the amelioration of the condition of more than sixty thousand 
of the population, who must receive the cup of good or of evil 
at their hands, will not be disregarded, and that the measures re¬ 
commended by the local authorities, will ultimately be attended to, 
let us consider what kinds of cultivation are most inviting. At 
first those of an indigenous kind claim a preference, and of these the 
most hardy and the least expensive in their culture, are the Cocoa- 
nut, Betelnut, Sago, (Cycas circinalis L.) Kabong, (Borassus 
gomutus JO.) with the usual variety of fruit trees found in the 
Dusons of Malacca, that is, heterogeneous collections of fruit trees 
planted out, immediately after a jungle is cleared and burned, but 
before the removal of stumps, and leaving them to grow together 
with the jungle for seven or eight years, only clearing the latter 
once in every couple of years. As an improvement, a hundred 
acres of land may thus be cleared and planted with a variety of 
fruit plants or seeds in rows as nearly regular as practicable, each 
species in a separate lot or section; they may be thinned or other¬ 
wise improved as it suits the owner when the Duson can pay its 
own expense. As for nutmegs, cloves and other expensive cultiva- 
