136 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
about with countless superstitions which often interfere 
with good farming. On the whole, however, it may be 
said that the better part of the land is highly cultivated. 
In Madura, maize partly supplies the place of rice, owing 
to the flatter nature of the country. A system of com¬ 
munal proprietorship obtains in most parts, the land 
being annually redivided, but much is held by individual 
owners. All new land won from the forest by clearing 
becomes the property of the person clearing it. 
Although there were in 1890 over five million acres 
of rice-land in cultivation in the lowlands, it is not to 
this, but to the higher botanical zones that the Govern¬ 
ment looks for its profit. Coffee has been said to be the 
pivot upon which everything in Java turns, though how 
much longer it will remain so is another question. It 
was first introduced in 1696, and early in the last 
century was being exported in fair quantity. Upon the 
introduction of the ‘'culture-system” in 1830 a con¬ 
siderable increase took place, and before the devastation 
caused by the appearance of the Hemileia vastatrix in 
1879, some 60,000 tons were annually sent to Holland. 
In 1887 the return was only 17,750 tons, and although 
that of the following year was somewhat better, the de¬ 
crease has been steady. In 1890, the lowest crop of the 
half century, 15,578 tons, was obtained, and that of 1891 
was estimated at not more than 11,000 tons. This is 
the Government export; that of private growers is rather 
greater in amount. At the last computation there were 
114 million coffee trees in cultivation as against 250 
millions in former years. The Government, while ad¬ 
mitting that the future prospects of the island in this 
respect are far from favourable, and that there is no pro¬ 
duct which in the immediate future can be looked for to 
take the place of coffee, are averse to a modification of 
