715 
AGRICULTURE IN MALACCA. 
I contemplated that the planter should take a lease of swampy 
land together with his lease for dry land. Supposing that he has 
obtained a hundred or more acres of the former upon favourable 
terms, he should as soon as convenient procure the settlement of 
about ten Malay families by encouraging them with the loan of 
buffaloes and implements, and perhaps, a few months’ consumption 
of rice, receiving in return, one-third of the grain produce. This 
is one of the hadats or ancient customs of the Malays, and they 
very gladly accept the offer, w r hen it is made, provided of course, 
the land is good and capable of being drained. The buffaloes 
should be females, as they form a stock belonging to the owner, 
but the calves are divided between the owner and his tenants, upon 
whom the keeping and rearing of the cattle devolve. The estimate 
of the original cost and subsequent profit may then be as follows: 
Ten buffaloes at Drs 15 each...Drs 150 
Implements—ten chankols and ten parangs. „ 10 
A picul of rice to each family..... 12 
Seeds, at 6 gantangs per acre.. „ 15 
Drs 187 
In general a field in a flourishing condition yields sixty fold or 
360 gantangs per acre ;* but taking it at 300 as an average, one 
hundred acres will annually produce 30,000 gantangs or 37 J co- 
yans, which, at Drs 20 per coyan, is equal in value to Drs 750, 
one third of which is Drs 250. But this amount cannot be realized 
during the first two years, as the stumps will not all have been 
removed by that time. Perhaps the quantity produced may then 
annum. But the fruit bearing power of the trees may be considerably improved by- 
extracting Toddy from the blossom shoots for the manufacture of jaggry, during the 
first two years of its productiveness, after which it may be discontinued, when from 
the force of habit, it is supposed, it will continue to yield plenty of juice and 
produce heavy crops ever after. The profit realized from the juice of each tree may 
be averaged at I of a cent per diem. In general each tree has two mayams or flower 
shoots open at the same time, and they last for about three months, after which 
others are produced. Each inayam will yield toddy sufficient for the manufacture 
of two small cakes of jaggry, four of which are equal in value to about I of 
a cent, at which rate 5,800 trees will realize daily dollars 43.50. But as every tree 
is required to be twice climbed, and the jaggry to be manufactured daily, a greater 
portion of this amount will have to be applied towards the payment of labourers; 
and assuming so high as two-thirds of this sum as their proportionate share, we 
have still a daily income of dollars 14.50, or per annum, dollars 5,292,50. for the 
first two years. ' The subsequent annual produce may be safely reckoned at fifty 
nuts per annum one tree witli another, and 5,800 trees will give 290,000 or dollars 
3,190, at dollars 11 per thousand ■ forty may be considered the average number now 
obtained from trees that are crowded to even within 15 feet of each other. The 
profit cannot be much enhanced by the manufacture of oil. The only advantage 
will be that of obtaining the oil refuse or ampas for feeding poultry, pigs and cattle. 
I have seen 42 pigs belonging to a Chinaman of which 20 were large, weighing from 
50 to 70 catties, in the most excellent slaughtering condition, fed only upon three 
gantangs of rice, and the oil refuse of 100 cocoanuts daily. 
* Col. Bow gives 100 fold as the produce of Province Weliesly—4 gantangs are 
said to be the quantity sown and 480 gantangs as the produce of each acre. In 
an official 'return in Malacca made in 1828, 8 gantangs of seeds were stated as 
sown in each acre of ground and 75 per cent the produce. 
