San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1894-01-04

great zeal or sugar and import not
only industrial products, but good deal
of foodstuff. The ground, therefore,
does not directly nourish the population
Several parts of India export foodstuffs,
and there is no trustworthy information
as to the interior commerce in these
products. Tonquin has too lately been
annexed to France to obtain trustworthy
statistics. Java, with Madura, is alone
suited to our statistical necessities.
This country is sufficiently large, it
furnishes good statistics of agriculture
and commerce, and the imports and ex-
ports are carefully registered. The pop
ulation is about as dense as in Belgium
and Saxony, but life is supported under
very different circumstances. Saxony
and Belgium import foodstuffs and ex-
port mineral and manufactured prod
ucts. Java imports very small amount
of rice and salt fish and exports many
more agricultural products. 1t not only
supplies its own people with food, but
finds it possible to buy mineral and
manufactured products. 1t might be
supposed that this immense population
would be divided in certain proportion
on the island, and either that its increase
would be small, as in France and Bel
GUM, or else there would be large
emigration, as from Great Britain or
Germany.
Neither case is true. Emigration is
scarcely known. The population in
creases at the rate of / per cent year,
and its distribution varies so greatly
that in the eastern portion there are
fewer people than in the swampy prov
ince of Minsk, in Russia, and in the
central part there are almost twice as
many people as in Belgium and Saxony,
and yet so per cent of the population in
this part of the island live by agricul-
ture. Rice is the staple, and the statistics
give 23S Kilograms to each inhabitant.
Only about Is per cent of the surface of
the island is devoted to the culture of
rice. This is still in a very primitive
state, but the government has taken 1t
up, and the production will be greatly
increased. Java is mountainous coun-
try, but these mountains are not high,
and the rainfall is great, and rice can be
cultivated on 30 per cent of the surface
for the first crop and 10 per cent for the
second. We have therefore a possible
extension of the cultivation of rice to
100000 hectares. An average crop to
this amount of acreage would support
1900, 900 people.
The surface of Java could be divided
in this manner: Thirty per cent of the
water surface would produce rice, vege-
tables, breadfruit and agricultural ex-
ports. Fifteen per cent, not watered,
would produce breadfruit and agricul-
tural exports; eight per cent, not water
ed, coffee and tea plantations; two per
cent, watered, sugar cane. There would
then be left 45 per cent for forests, gar
dens, meadows, waters, roads and dwell
ings. The people of Java need not then
be condemned to live on rice alone.
Fruits are very important and necessary
for health, and in Java alone are found
100 different kinds. Cattle can be easily
raised, and the superintendent numbers
of water plants, insects and worms that
are found in tropical countries furnish
an easy means of feeding fish and fowls.
We find therefore that in this country
800 men could find support on one square
kilometer, or more than four times as
many people as are now there.-Alex-
under Wolikof in Breslau Deutsche
Revue.