14 
COLON IAL REPO RT S—ANN UAL. 
has now a larger import than export: and its export of pigs is 
not half of what it was three years ago. Singapore has long had 
a larger import than export of both ; though the by-products of its 
industries would seem to promise plentiful pig or poultry food. 
Freights having driven up the cost of imported foodstuffs, 
those which can be produced in the Colony have fetched better 
prices in the markets, and the growing of them has received 
a stimulus. Rice has been more extensively sown than in any 
recent year, and the crop promises well. Vegetables have been 
grown in increased quantity in most places: ginger particularly 
in Malacca. 
The fruit crop of 1917 was a very poor one, partly as a result 
of the bountiful crop of 1916, in consequence of the trees 
demanding a rest, but mostly because of the unseasonable weather 
when the trees flowered. For the same reason cloves bore badly in 
Penang, and the rice crop of 1916-17 was spoiled. 
There is no tendency in Penang to neglect the pure clove 
plantations; but the mixed clove-nutmeg-areca palm gardens are 
suffering much from want of attention. It appears that this has 
been caused, like the decrease in the local fisheries and in some 
other occupations of men of small means, by the attractiveness 
of rubber-planting. It is certainly responsible for the fact that 
Mij luugci cApui j nore nutmegs than it imports, and 
from being a producing centre has become rather an entrepot 
for the Sumatra trade. It seems also to be responsible for the 
reduction in the exports of areca-nuts from Penang. 
Similarly village fruit-growing would seem be be declining 
in Malacca and also the export of areca-nuts. 
Gambier just persists in the Colony. As a catch crop for 
rubber it has virtually ceased to exist. Pineapple cultivation in 
Singapore is also less in use as a catch crop than formerly: but 
the industry of canning the fruit is suffering eclipse on account of 
the impossibility of obtaining tin-plate. 
Owing to the good returns rubber has been cultivated on a 
more scientific basis. Thinning has- been very extensively done, 
and tapping placed on to a more conservative basis: but there are 
an enormous number of small holdings, the owners of which cannot 
or will not wait for their profits, and some anxiety is caused by 
these plots of weakened trees. Fortunately rubber in the 
Settlements is very free from disease : one small outbreak occurred 
in Malacca, and the advice of the Department of Agriculture of 
the Federated Malay States was sought. It is noticeable that 
more attention is being given to the advantages of manuring. 
Coconuts are not receiving much attention, but are generally 
healthy, save for insect pests, of which a new one, unrecorded, 
but perhaps not altogether unknown, a beetle,—has done some 
damage near Malacca town. The moth Brachartona has been 
prevalent in Singapore island, 
