re is no one thing more
injurious to the plant than water lodging around its roots, although,
in order to thrive well, it requires an atmosphere of the most humid
sort, and rain almost daily. Besides the form of the ground, situation
is highly desirable, particularly as regards exposure. A spot selected
for a nutmeg plantation cannot be too well sheltered, as high winds
are most destructive to the tree, independently of the loss occasioned
by the blowing off of fruit and flower.

At present there is abundant choice of land in Singapore, the greater
portion of the island being as yet uncultivated, and much answering to
the above description. The land can be purchased from Government at
the rate of from 10s. to 20s. per acre in perpetuity. I would advise
the man who wishes to establish a plantation, to select the virgin
forest, and of all things let him avoid deserted gambier plantations,
the soil of which is completely exhausted, the Chinese taking good
care never to leave a spot until they have taken all they can out of
it. A cleared spot has a great attraction for the inexperienced, and
it is not easy to convince a man that it is less expensive to attack
the primitive forest, than to attempt to clear an old gambier
plantation, overrun with lalang grass; but the cutting down and
burning of large forest trees is far less expensive than the
extirpation of the lalang, and as the Chinese leave all the stumps of
the large trees in the ground, it is almost more difficult to remove
them in this state than when you have the powerful lever of the trunk
to aid you in tearing up the roots, setting aside the paramount
advantage that, in the one case you possess a fresh and fertile soil,
in the other an effete and barren one.

Forest land, or "jungle," as it is called in the East, can be cleared
for about 25 to 30 dollars (L5 to L6) per acre, by contract, but the
planter had better be careful to have every stump and root of tree
removed, ere he ventures to commence planting, or the white ants,
attracted by the dead wood, will crowd into the land, and having
consumed the food thus prepared for them, will not be slow in
attacking the young trees. Whilst the planter is thus clearing the
ground, he may advantageously at the same time be establishing
nurseries; for these the ground ought to be well trenched and mixed
with a small quantity of thoroughly decomposed manure and burned
earth, making up the earth afterwards into beds of abou