A GLANCE AT MtNAHASSA. 
829 
pounds Amsterdam. It is much prized in Netherlands, and it 
maintains a higher price in the market that the best Java coffee. 
As the treatment of the product on Java differs wholly from that 
which is here in vogue, and this in our eyes is much inferior, we 
know not whether this higher price is ascribable to the name or 
to an intrinsic superiority in quality. It is certain that this culti¬ 
vation is susceptible of much improvement, and might be advanced 
to a much higher condition. 
The average harvest is from ten to twelve thousand piculs of 125 
Amsterdam pounds, and has, I believe, during the last years rather 
fallen off than increased, for in a cultivation to stand still is to go 
back. 
Rice .—The oldest notices of Menado which we can trace, shew 
that this country has always been rich in rice, which in 1671 cost 
about rix dollars* the last. At present the government pays 60 
cents in cloths for a measure of 40 pounds ; that which is sold for 
the consumption of the inhabitants may be procured at the public 
warehouse for a guilder the 35^ pounds; and that which is sold for 
expoit may be had at public auction for 125 florins the coyan of 
3,000 pounds. This product is also capable of extension, chiefly 
at those places where there are sawa fields, for example at Ton- 
sawang. 
A gantdng sowed yields at a minimum 150 fold. But the want 
of buffaloes remains always a great hindrance, for at present all the 
work must be done with the potjal or even a stick of ironwood, or 
of the seho tree. 
[From tables given by M. Spreeuwenberg of tbe quantity of rice 
delivered from each district from 1st January 1838, to the last of 
December 1842, and another of the coffee delivered during the same 
period, it appears that the average annual delivery of rice was 
3,390,119 pounds, and that of coffee 1,288,118 pounds.] 
Tobacco is cultivated here, but only in sufficient quantity for 
the consumption of the place. It is exclusively grown by the Ban- 
tik population ; tbe mode of preparation is the same as on Java ; it 
is chopped very fine and mostly flavoured with arrack. When bought 
in large quantities it may be had for 30 cents the pound ; but in the 
passar in small quantities it costs double that price. The inhabitants 
do not use it so extensively as in Java. 
* The common rix dollar was 48 stivers: thus 1.92 florins of our money. 
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