25 per cent. 10 per cent.

1883 101 " 50 " 30 "

1884 77 " 60 " 30 "

1885 107 " 100 " 60 "

1886 108 " ..... .....

In Sumatra, under Dutch rule, tobacco culture can at present only be
carried on in certain districts, where the soil is suitable and where
the natives are not hostile, and, as most of the best land has been
taken up, and planters are beginning to feel harassed by the stringent
regulations and heavy taxation of the Dutch Government, both Dutch and
German planters are turning their attention to British North Borneo,
where they find the regulations easier, and the authorities most anxious
to welcome them, while, owing to the scanty population, there is plenty
of available land. It is but fair to say that the first experiment in
North Borneo was made by an English, or rather an Anglo-Chinese Company,
the China-Sabah Land Farming Company, who, on hurriedly selected land in
Sandakan and under the disadvantages which usually attend pioneers in a
new country, shipped a crop to England which was pronounced by experts
in 1886 to equal in quality the best Sumatra-grown leaf. Unfortunately,
this Company, which had wasted its resources on various experiments,
instead of confining itself to tobacco planting, was unable to continue
its operations, but a Dutch planter from Java, Count GELOES D'ELSLOO,
having carefully selected his land in Marudu Bay, obtained, in 1887, the
high average of $1 per lb. for his trial crop at Amsterdam, and, having
formed an influential Company in Europe, is energetically bringing a
large area under cultivation, and has informed me that he confidently
expects to rival Sumatra, not only in quality, but also in quantity of
leaf per acre, as some of his men have cut twelve pikuls per field,
whereas six pikuls per field is usually considered a good crop. The
question of "quantity" is a very important one, for quality without
quantity will never pay on a tobacco estate. Several Dutchmen have
followed Count GELOES' example, and two German Companies and one British
are now at work in the country. Altogether, fully 350,000 acres[19] of
land have been taken up for tobacco cultivation in British North Borneo
up to the present time.

In selecting land for this crop, climate, that is, temperature and
rainfall, has equally to be considered with richness of soil. For
example, the