Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstra13141884roya).pdf/372

 mark the course of the Kinabatangau and other rivers lend themselves to the culture of indigo, tobacco, cotton, rice and the other well-known tropical products. Such villages as the traveller meets with on excursions in the interior, are fed and maintained by agriculture, the successful features of which, belong to the natural fertility of the soil, rather than to the science of the native farmer. You cross a plain of rice, bananas, cocoa-nut trees and other luxuriant vegetation. You see the native cultivator at work, his rude plough drawn by buffaloes, and flocks of white paddy birds sailing aloft, or a few solitary cranes adding an oriental touch to the picture. You halt on the river bank amidst tropical groves, here and there relieved by neatly kept gardens, fenced down to the water's edge, and containing plentiful supplies of sweet potatoes, cucumbers, maize and kaladi."

That the country is peculiarly adapted for the growth of tobacco, is demonstrated by the fact of its cultivation by the natives of both coasts, and that in spite of the want of care in its production, an excellent leaf is obtained. A sample of leaf from a newly opened plantation on the East Coast, has been pronounced by experts to be unsurpassed. Such being the case, and considering that the available land in the tobacco producing countries is becoming exhausted, it is reasonable to suppose that this country will, in a short time, take a prominent place as a large producer of tobacco.

Sugar is also cultivated to some extent and in some parts of the country; a primitive mill for crushing is used by the natives. Considering, however, the small profit returned, together with the known risks in cultivation, the substitutes for cane which are being brought into the market, and the comparatively low rate at which labour is obtained in the sugar producing countries, it is doubtful whether this product will he cultivated to any large extent.