The History of Java, v. 1-2

by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

The vast superiority of the sáwah, or wet cultivation, over that of tégal, or dry, is shewn in their relative produce, and may be still further illustrated by a comparison of the rents which the two descriptions of land are calculated to afford. The quantity of tégal land, or land fit for maize, as compared with that of sáwah land, varies in different districts. In Chéribon, the tégal land, by the late survey, amounted only to 2,511, while the sáwan exceeded 16,000. In Tégal the proportions were even more widely varied, the number of jungs of the former to the latter being as 891 to 11,445. In Surabáya they were as 1,356 to 17,397; in Kedú and Besúki they were nearly equal, being respectively as 8,295 to 10,757, and as 6,369 to 7,862.

The succession of crops, next to the facility of irrigation, depends upon the quality of the soil, which in the native provinces is divided by the cultivators into three principal kinds, tána ládu, tána línchad, and tána pásir. The first is the best, consisting of rich vegetable mould, and a certain proportion of sand, and exists chiefly near the banks of large rivers; the second is almost pure clay, and is found in the central plains; and the third is alluvial, and covers the maritime districts. The term pádas péréng is applied to the oblique tracts enriched with a fertile mould, which form the acclivities of hills, and from which the water readily disappears. Tána ládu will bear a constant succession of crops. Tána línchad yields only a single annual crop of rice: during the rainy season the soil constitutes a stiff mud, in which the plants find the requisite moisture and display all their luxuriance; when it is afterwards exposed to the rays of the sun, it bursts into extensive fissures, which admitting the scorching heat by which they were produced, become detrimental to every species of vegetation.

Besides the annual crop of rice which is raised on the sáwah lands, a variety of plants are raised upon them as a second or light crop within the same year. Among these are several species of káchang or bean, the cotton plant, the indigo, and a variety of cucumbers, &c. But the more generally useful and profitable vegetables require nearly the same period as the rice, and only yield their increase once in a season: they mostly grow in situations, on which the supply of water can be regulated, and a continued inundation prevented. Among the most important are the gúdé, káchang pénden, or káchang chína, káchang íju, kédéle, jágung or Indian corn, jágung chántel, jáwa-wút, jáli, wíjen, járak or palma christi, térong, and kéntang jáwa.

In tégal lands of high situations a particular method of planting is sometimes practiced, which produces a result similar to a succession of crops. Together with the rice are deposited the seeds of other vegetables, which arrive at maturity at different periods, chiefly after the rice harvest. The most common and useful among these is cotton; and, in some tracts, great quantities of this valuable product is thus obtained, without any exclusive allotment of the soil. Next to this are various leguminous and other plants, which do not interfere with the rice. No less than six or eight kinds of vegetables are sometimes in this manner seen to shoot up promiscuously in a single field.

Rice, however, as has been repeatedly observed, is the grand staple of Javan, as well as Indian cultivation, and to this every other species of husbandry is subordinate. The adjacent islands and states of Sumatra, Malacca, Borneo, Celebes, and the Moluccas, have always in a great measure depended on the Javan cultivator for their supply, and the Dutch were in the habit of transporting an annual quantity of between six and eight thousand tons to Ceylon, to Coromandel, to the Cape, and their other settlements. Even at the low rate at which it generally sells, a revenue of near four million of rupees, or about half a million sterling, has been estimated as the government portion of its annual produce.

According to the modes of cultivation by which it has been reared, this grain is called pári sáwah, or pári gága; corresponding, with some exceptions, to the pádi sáwah, and pádi ládang of Sumatra. In the western, and particularly the Súnda districts, the term gága is changed for típar, the term gága, in these districts, being only occasionally applied to the grain which is cultivated on newly cleared mountainous spots.

The lowland and the mountain rice, or more correctly speaking, the rice raised in dry lands and the rice raised in lands subjected to inundation, are varieties of the same species (the oriza sativa of Linnæus) although both of them are permanent: but the rice planted on the mountainous or dry ground does not thrive on irrigated lands; nor, on the contrary, does the sáwah rice succeed on lands beyond the reach of irrigation. The mountain rice is supposed to contain in the same bulk more nourishment than the other, and is more palatable; but its use is limited to the less populous districts of the island, the greater proportion of the inhabitants depending exclusively on the produce of the sáwahs, or wet cultivation, for their support.

Stavorinus asserts, that the mountain rice is not so good as that of the low lands. Mr. Marsden informs us, on the contrary, that the former brings the higher price, and is considered of superior quality, being whiter, heartier, and better flavoured grain, keeping better, and increasing more in boiling. "The rice of the low lands," he says, "is more prolific from the seed, and subject to less risk in the culture; and on these accounts, rather than from its superior quality, is in more common use than the former." In general, the weightiest and whitest grain is preferred; a preference mentioned by Bontius, who includes in the character of the best rice its whiteness, its clearness of colour, and its preponderating weight, bulk for bulk. Dr. Horsfield conceives that Stavorinus formed his opinion in the low northern maritime districts of Java, and Mr. Marsden from a more extensive observation. Many intelligent natives state, that they prefer the mountain rice when they can procure it, on account of its whiteness, strength, and flavour; and that they are only limited in its use, by the impossibility of raising as much of it as can satisfy the general demand, all the mountain or dry rice not being sufficient to feed one-tenth of the population. In less populous countries, as in many parts of Sumatra, the inhabitants can easily subsist the whole of their numbers exclusively on mountain rice, or that produced on ládangs, which are fields reclaimed from ancient forests for the first time, and from which only one crop is demanded. The grain here, as in the mountain rice of Java, is highly flavoured and nutritious; but in countries where the population is crowded, where a scanty crop will not suffice, and where a continued supply of new land cannot be obtained, the peasantry must apply their labour to such grounds as admit of uninterrupted cultivation, and renew their annual fertility by periodical inundations, even although the produce is not so highly prized.

In the sáwahs of Java the fields are previously ploughed, inundated, and laboured by animals and hoeing, until the mould is converted into a semifluid mire: they then are considered fit to receive the young plants. No manure is ever used. Oil-cakes (búngkil), which are by some writers supposed to be used for this purpose generally, are only employed in the gardens about Batavia. One of the chief characteristics of the soil on Java, is an exemption from the necessity of requiring manure: on the sáwah lands, the annual inundation of the land is sufficient to renovate its vigour, and to permit constant cropping for a succession of years, without any observable impoverishment.

In the cultivation of the sáwahs, the plants are uniformly transplanted or removed from their first situation. In those of tégal or gága, they grow to maturity on the same spot where the seed was originally deposited, whether this be on high mountainous districts, or on low lands, the distinction of sáwah and gága depending exclusively not upon the situation of the field, but in the mode of culture, whether wet or dry.