In new ground, after clearing it from the brushwood, reeds, and aquatic vegetables with which the marshes, when neglected, are overrun, and burning them at the close of the dry season, the soil is, in the beginning of the wet, prepared for culture by different modes of working. In some places a number of buffaloes, whose greatest enjoyment consists in wading and rolling in mud, are turned in, and these by their motions contribute to give it a more uniform consistence as well as enrich it by their dung. In other parts less permanently moist the soil is turned up, either with a wooden instrument between a hoe and a pickaxe, or with the plough, of which they use two kinds; their own, drawn by one buffalo, extremely simple, and the wooden share of it doing little more than scratch the ground to the depth of six inches; and one they have borrowed from the Chinese, drawn either with one or two buffaloes, very light, and the share more nearly resembling ours, turning the soil over as it passes and making a narrow furrow. In sawahs however the surface has in general so little consistence that no furrow is perceptible, and the plough does little more than loosen the stiff mud to some depth, and cut the roots of the grass and weeds, from which it is afterwards cleared by means of a kind of harrow or rake, being a thick plank of heavy wood with strong wooden teeth and loaded with earth where necessary. This they contrive to drag along the surface for the purpose at the same time of depressing the rising spots and filling up the hollow ones. The whole being brought as nearly as possible to a level, that the water may lie equally upon it the sawah is, for the more effectual securing of this essential point, divided into portions nearly square or oblong (called piring, which signifies a dish) by narrow banks raised about eighteen inches and two feet wide. These drying become harder than the rest, confine the water, and serve the purpose of footways throughout the plantation. When there is more water in one division than another small passages are cut through the dams to produce an equality. Through these apertures water is also in some instances introduced from adjacent rivers or reservoirs, where such exist, and the season requires their aid. The innumerable springs and rivulets with which this country abounds render unnecessary the laborious processes by which water is raised and supplied to the rice grounds in the western part of India, where the soil is sandy: yet still the principal art of the planter consists, and is required, in the management of this article; to furnish it to the ground in proper and moderate quantities and to carry it off from time to time by drains; for if suffered to be long stagnant it would occasion the grain to rot.
TRANSPLANTATION.
Whilst the sawahs have been thus in preparation to receive the padi a small, adjacent, and convenient spot of good soil has been chosen, in which the seed-grain is sown as thick as it can well lie to the ground, and is then often covered with layers of lalang (long grass, instead of straw) to protect the grain from the birds, and perhaps assist the vegetation. When it has grown to the height of from five to eight inches, or generally at the end of forty days from the time of sowing, it is taken up in showery weather and transplanted to the sawah, where holes are made four or five inches asunder to receive the plants. If they appear too forward the tops are cropped off. A supply is at the same time reserved in the seed-plots to replace such as may chance to fail upon removal. These plantations, in the same manner as the ladangs, it is necessary to cleanse from weeds at least twice in the first two or three months; but no maize or other seed is sown among the crop. When the padi begins to form the ear or to blossom, as the natives express it, the water is finally drawn off, and at the expiration of four months from the time of transplanting it arrives at maturity. The manner of guarding against the birds is similar to what has been already described; but the low ground crop has a peculiar and very destructive enemy in the rats, which sometimes consume the whole of it, especially when the plantation has been made somewhat out of season; to obviate which evil the inhabitants of a district sow by agreement pretty nearly at the same time; whereby the damage is less perceptible. In the mode of reaping likewise there is nothing different. Upon the conclusion of the harvest it is an indispensable duty to summon the neighbouring priests to the first meal that is made of the new rice, when an entertainment is given according to the circumstances of the family. Should this ceremony be omitted the crop would be accursed (haram) nor could the whole household expect to outlive the season. This superstition has been by the Mahometans judiciously engrafted on the stock of credulity in the country people.
The same spot of low ground is for the most part used without regular intermission for several successive years, the degree of culture they bestow by turning up the soil and the overflowing water preserving its fertility. They are not however insensible to the advantage of occasional fallows. In consequence of this continued use the value of the sawah grounds differs from that of ladangs, the former being, in the neighbourhood of populous towns particularly, distinct property, and of regularly ascertained value. At Natal for example those consisting between one and two acres sell for sixteen to twenty Spanish dollars. In the interior country, where the temperature of the air is more favourable to agriculture, they are said to sow the same spot with ladang rice for three successive years; and there also it is common to sow onions as soon as the stubble is burned off. Millet (randa jawa) is sown at the same time with the padi. In the country of Manna, southward of Bencoolen, a progress in the art of cultivation is discovered, superior to what appears in almost any other part of the island; the Batta country perhaps alone excepted. Here may be seen pieces of land in size from five to fifteen acres, regularly ploughed and harrowed. The difference is thus accounted for. It is the most populous district in that southern part, with the smallest extent of sea-coast. The pepper plantations and ladangs together having in a great measure exhausted the old woods in the accessible parts of the country, and the inhabitants being therein deprived of a source of fertility which nature formerly supplied, they must either starve, remove to another district, or improve by cultivation the spot where they reside. The first is contrary to the inherent principle that teaches man to preserve life by every possible means: their attachment to their native soil, or rather their veneration for the sepulchres of their ancestors, is so strong that to remove would cost them a struggle almost equal to the pangs of death: necessity therefore, the parent of art and industry, compels them to cultivate the earth.
RATE OF PRODUCE.
The produce of the grounds thus tilled is reckoned at thirty for one; from those in the ordinary mode about a hundred fold on the average, the ladangs yielding about eighty, and the sawahs a hundred and twenty. Under favourable circumstances I am assured the rate of produce is sometimes so high as a hundred and forty fold. The quantity sown by a family is usually from five to ten bamboo measures or gallons. These returns are very extraordinary compared with those of our wheat-fields in Europe, which I believe seldom exceed fifteen, and are often under ten. To what is this disproportion owing? to the difference of grain, as rice may be in its nature extremely prolific? to the more genial influence of a warmer climate? or to the earth's losing by degrees her fecundity from an excessive cultivation? Rather than to any of these causes I am inclined to attribute it to the different process followed in sowing. In England the saving of labour and promoting of expedition are the chief objects, and in order to effect these the grain is almost universally scattered in the furrows; excepting where the drill has been introduced. The Sumatrans, who do not calculate the value of their own labour or that of their domestics on such occasions, make holes in the ground, as has been described, and drop into each a few grains*; or, by a process still more tedious, raise the seed in beds and then plant it out. Mr. Charles Miller, in a paper published in the Philosophical Transactions, has shown us the wonderful effects of successive transplantation. How far it might be worth the English farmer's while to bestow more labour in the business of sowing the grain, with the view of a proportionate increase in the rate of produce, I am not competent, nor is it to my present purpose, to form a judgment. Possibly as the advantage might be found to lie rather in the quantity of grain saved in the sowing than gained in the reaping, it would not answer his purpose; for although half the quantity of seed-corn bears reciprocally the same proportion to the usual produce that double the latter does to the usual allowance of seed, yet in point of profit the scale is different. To augment this it is of much more importance to increase the produce from a given quantity of land than to diminish the quantity of grain necessary for sowing it.
(*Footnote. In an address from the Bath Agricultural Society dated 12th October 1795 it is strongly recommended to the cultivators of land (on account of the then existing scarcity of grain) to adopt the method of dibbling wheat. The holes to be made either by the common dibble, or with an implement having four or more points in a frame, at the distance of about four inches every way, and to the depth of an inch and a half; dropping TWO grains into every hole. The man who dibbles is to move backwards and to be followed by two or three women or children, who drop in the grains. A bush-hurdle, drawn across the furrows by a single horse, finishes the business. About six pecks of seed-wheat per acre are saved by this method. The expense of dibbling, dropping, and covering is reckoned in Norfolk at about six shillings per acre. Times Newspaper of 20th October 1795.)
FERTILITY OF SOIL.
Notwithstanding the received opinion of the fertility of what are called the Malay Islands, countenanced by the authority of M. Poivre and other celebrated writers, and still more by the extraordinary produce of grain, as above stated, I cannot help saying that I think the soil of the western coast of Sumatra is in general rather sterile than rich. It is for the most part a stiff red clay, burned nearly to the state of a brick where it is exposed to the influence of the sun. The small proportion of the whole that is cultivated is either ground from which old woods have been recently cleared, whose leaves had formed a bed of vegetable earth some inches deep, or else ravines into which the scanty mould of the adjoining hills has been washed by the annual torrents of rain. It is true that in many parts of the coast there are, between the cliffs and the sea-beach, plains varying in breadth and extent of a sandy soil, probably left by the sea and more or less mixed with earth in proportion to the time they have remained uncovered by the waters; and such are found to prove the most favourable spots for raising the productions of other parts of the world. But these are partial and insufficient proofs of fertility. Every person who has attempted to make a garden of any kind nor Fort Marlborough must well know how ineffectual a labour it would prove to turn up with the spade a piece of ground adopted at random. It becomes necessary for this purpose to form an artificial soil of dung, ashes, rubbish, and such other materials as can be procured. From these alone he can expect to raise the smallest supply of vegetables for the table. I have seen many extensive plantations of coconut, pinang, lime, and coffee-trees, laid out at a considerable expense by different gentlemen, and not one do I recollect to have succeeded; owing as it would seem to the barrenness of the soil, although covered with long grass. These disappointments have induced the Europeans almost entirely to neglect agriculture. The more industrious Chinese colonists, who work the ground with indefatigable pains, and lose no opportunity of saving and collecting manure, are rather more successful; yet have I heard one of the most able cultivators among this people, who, by the dint of labour and perseverance, had raised what then appeared to me a delightful garden, designed for profit as well as pleasure, declare that his heart was almost broken in struggling against nature; the soil being so ungrateful that, instead of obtaining an adequate return for his trouble and expense, the undertaking was likely to render him a bankrupt; and which he would inevitably have been but for assistance afforded him by the East India Company.*
(*Footnote. Some particular plants, especially the tea, Key Sun used to tell me he considered as his children: his first care in the morning and his last in the evening was to tend and cherish them. I heard with concern of his death soon after the first publication of this work, and could have wished the old man had lived to know that the above small tribute of attention had been paid to his merits as a gardener. In a letter received from the late ingenious Mr. Charles Campbell, belonging to the medical establishment of Fort Marlborough, whose communications I shall have future occasion to notice, he writes on the 29th of March 1802: "I must not omit to say a word about my attempts to cultivate the land. The result of all my labours in that way was disappointment almost as heartbreaking as that of the unlucky Chinaman, whose example however did not deter me. After many vexations I descended from the plains into the ravines, and there met with the success denied me on the elevated land. In one of these, through which runs a small rivulet emptying itself into the lake of Dusun Besar, I attempted a plantation of coffee, where there are now upwards of seven thousand plants firmly rooted and putting out new leaves." this cultivation has since been so much increased as to become an important article of commerce. It should at the same time be acknowledged that our acquaintance with the central and eastern parts of the island is very imperfect, and that much fertile land may be found beyond the range of mountains.)