he purchasers he wants, are men of
capital, say from 5000l. to 10,000l. each, to whom he must give credit
for the land, and leave them unhampered to carry on their operations.
All lands fit for the growth of coffee or sugar must be worked by these
capitalists on their own account: they must send to Java for experienced
overseers, (Europeans,) to conduct the works; and to Bally, Lombok, or
the Coromandel coast, for labourers. The natives of the former two are
preferable, but, I fear, could not be obtained in sufficient numbers.
Not a China-man should be employed on an estate of mine as a
field-labourer, though the Chinese answer remarkably well, _under
Europeans_, in sugar-mills. An experienced overseer from Java will point
out to them the best lands for coffee and sugar, and the best modes of
planting and rearing both. It is also a very good plan, to contract with
a party to grow the cane, (the proprietor helping him with small
advances,) which the landlord engages to take at so much per thousand
when ripe, to be delivered at the mill door. The grower, in such cases,
is generally a poor man, and require aid for the first year, to buy
buffaloes, ploughs, and provisions. In Java, nine-tenths of the cane are
produced in this way; and the landlord saves both risk and trouble by
it. No cane, no pay, is the rule there; so that, although the mill-owner
may lose his time in a bad season, he sacrifices no outlay. The Chinese
cannot be trusted to _manufacture_ the sugar: they are conceited
bunglers at that work, as stubborn as mules, and use too much lime, in
spite of all one can say or do to prevent it. Coffee may also be planted
by contract; though, in Java, where men can be got for three guilders
per month and their rice, worth two guilders more, the plan is not
generally adopted.

A party purchasing land, ought to have it selected so as to have
portions of it fit for coffee, sugar, and rice, and to try all three. In
rice-cultivation, a different plan, however, must be pursued. In Java, a
proprietor of rice-land encourages as many people to sit down on his
property as he can possibly obtain; charges them no rent in money, but
helps them each to build a hut; lends them money to buy two buffaloes;
and gives them rations of rice and salt for the first twelve months;
taking care, in the meantime, that the man, his wife, and his children
are as busy as bees, planting and looking after a few rice-fields,--the
more the better; seeing