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‘A ruinous infatuation’: Nutmeg cultivation in early Penang

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2023

Christina Skott
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Abstract

Between 1786 and the 1860s, Penang Island was transformed from a lush tropical island into a British colony covered in ordered plantations. As a consequence of Britain's temporary possession of the fabled Spice Islands, nutmeg emerged as the most important crop, but after decades of experimentation and uncertainty, its cultivation ultimately failed. Although the struggle for nutmeg to become commercially viable was heavily dependent on global price fluctuations and official support, this article focuses on local factors such as shortages of labour, the specific skills of the island's various ethnic groups and reliance on indigenous agricultural techniques. The story of nutmeg cultivation in Penang can then be situated within a wider historiography concerned with the transmission of botanical knowledge and plant transfer, as well as the ecological impact of colonial agriculture.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , December 2022 , pp. 664 - 685
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Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore, 2023

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Footnotes

The author would like to thank Marcus Langdon for help and advice, and two anonymous reviewers for constructive comments. Research for this article was generously supported by Think City Sdn Bhd.

References

1 ‘Notices of Pinang’, Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia (hereafter JIA) 5 (1851): 185–6; D.K. Bassett, ‘British commercial and strategic interests in the Malay Peninsula during the late eighteenth century’, in Malayan and Indonesian Studies, ed. John Bastin and R. Roolvink (Oxford: Claredon, 1964); Mills, L.A., ‘British Malaya 1824–67’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (hereafter JMBRAS) 33, 3 (1960): 36–59Google Scholar; Marcus Langdon, Penang: The Fourth Presidency of India, 1805–1830; Volume 1: Ships, men and mansions (Penang: Areca, 2013), esp. pp. 5–9, 18. Also see, for example, H.P. Clodd, Malaya's first British pioneer: The life of Francis Light (London: Luzac & Co., 1948), chap. 4; Charles Donald Cowan, ed., ‘Early Penang and the rise of Singapore’, JMBRAS 23, 2 (1950): 3–4. For contemporary accounts, see ‘Formation of the establishment on Poolo Penang’, in Reinhold Rost, ed., Miscellaneous papers relating to Indo-China, vol. 1 (London: Trübner & Co, 1886), pp. 26–37; and Sir Home Popham, A Description of Prince of Wales Island in the Streights of Malacca (London: John Stockdale, 1799).

2 C.M. Turnbull, The Straits Settlements, 1826–67: Indian Presidency to Crown Colony (London: Athlone, 1972), p. 143.

3 See, for example, Lucile H. Brockway, Science and colonial expansion: The role of the British Botanic Gardens (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003); Thomas, Adrian P., ‘The establishment of Calcutta Botanic Garden: Plant transfer, science and the East India Company, 1786–1806’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 16, 2 (2006): 165–77Google Scholar; Baber, Zaheer, ‘The plants of Empire: Botanical gardens, colonial power and botanical knowledge’, Journal of Contemporary Asia 46, 4 (2016): 666–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See, in particular, Richard Drayton, Nature's government: Science, imperial Britain, and the ‘improvement’ of the world (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).

5 Richard Grove, Green imperialism: Colonial expansion, tropical island Edens and the origins of environmentalism, 1600–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), chap. 5.

6 See James E. McClellan III and Francois Regourd, The colonial machine: French science and overseas expansion in the Old Regime (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011); Emma Spary, ‘Of nutmegs and botanists: The colonial cultivation of botanical identity’, in Colonial botany: Science, commerce, and politics in the early modern world, ed. Londa Schiebinger and Claudia Swan (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), pp. 187–203. See, however, Dorit Brixius, ‘A hard nut to crack: Nutmeg cultivation and the application of natural history between the Maluku Islands and Isle de France (1750s–1780s)’, in ‘Science and Islands in the Indo-Pacific Worlds’, British Journal for the History of Science 51, special issue 4 (2018): 585–606.

7 Council to Light, 2 May 1787; Council to Prince of Wales Island, 23 Dec. 1789, Bengal Proceedings relating to Penang, IOR/G/34/2, East India Company Factory Records: Straits Settlements, India Office Records and Private Papers, British Library, UK (hereafter EICFR).

8 George Leith, A short account of the settlement, produce, and commerce of Prince of Wales Island in the Straits of Malacca (London: J. Booth, 1804), p. 33; Elisha Trapaud, A short account of the Prince of Wales's Island, or Pulo Peenang, in the East-Indies; given to Capt. Light, by the King of Quedah (London: John Stockdale, 1788), p. 18; Popham, A description; Tregonning, K.G., ‘The early land administration and agricultural development of Penang’, JMBRAS 39, 2 (1966): 34Google Scholar; Stevens, F.G.A., ‘A contribution to the early history of Prince of Wales’ island’, JMBRAS 7, 3 (1929): 394Google Scholar.

9 ‘Notices of Pinang’, JIA 4 (1850): 637.

10 ‘Notices of Pinang’, JIA 5 (1851): 100.

11 A.M. Skinner, ed., ‘Memoir of Capt. Francis Light’, Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 28 (1895): 3; ‘Notices of Pinang’, JIA 4 (1850): 637; A.B. Rathborne, Camping and tramping in Malaya: Fifteen years’ pioneering in the Native States of the Malay Peninsula (London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1898), pp. 11, 134.

12 Tregonning, ‘The early land administration’, p. 35.

13 Lennon, Walter Caulfield, ‘Journal of a voyage through the Straits of Malacca on an expedition to the Molucca Islands …’, JMBRAS 7 (1881): 54–5Google Scholar.

14 ‘Notices of Pinang’, JIA 5 (1851): 10, 13, 362; Lennon, ‘A journey’, pp. 54–5; E.G. Cullin and W.F. Zehnder, The early history of Penang (Penang: Criterion, 1905), p. 10; Bengal public consultations, 8 July 1802, IOR/G/34/9, EICFR.

15 ‘Notices of Pinang’, JIA 5 (1851): 8; Tregonning, ‘The early land administration’, p. 34.

16 Turnbull, The Straits Settlements, pp. 140–43; Stevens, ‘A contribution’; Garnier, Keppel, ‘Early days in Penang’, JMBRAS 87, 1 (1923): 7Google Scholar; ‘List of European inhabitants of George Town Prince of Wales Island, December 1788’, ‘Appendix to Consultation the 10 April 1789’, IOR/G/34/3, EICFR.

17 1 orlong = 1.3 acres.

18 Turnbull, The Straits Settlements, pp. 141–3.

19 Tregonning, ‘The early land administration’, p. 49; Stevens, ‘A contribution’, pp. 379–80; Walter Makepeace, One hundred years of Singapore, vol. 1 (London: Murray, 1928), p. 130.

20 James C. Jackson, Planters and speculators: Chinese and European agricultural enterprise in Malaya, 1786–1921 (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1968), pp. 118–19, 95–100; Tregonning,‘The early land administration’, pp. 35–6; R.D. Hill, Rice in Malaya: A study in historical geography (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 72; James Low, A dissertation on the soil and agriculture of the British settlement of Penang, or Prince of Wales Island ….’ (Singapore: Singapore Free Press Office, 1836), pp. 40–43; Stevens, ‘A contribution’, p. 396. 1 pikul = 133.3 lbs.

21 William Hunter and Henry Ridley, ‘Plants of Prince of Wales Island’, JMBRAS 53 (1909): 72–3.

22 Jackson, Planters and speculators, pp. 94, 96–7.

23 Cowan, ‘Early Penang’, p. 41; Governor Macalister to the Secret Committee, 7 Apr. 1808, IOR/G/34/9, EICFR; Langdon, Penang, vol. 1, p. 26.

24 General letter, 8 July 1818, IOR/G/34/85, EICFR; Arnold Wright and Thomas H. Reid, The Malay Peninsula: A record of British progress in the Middle East (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912), pp. 97–8; Jackson, Planters and speculators, pp. 95–8.

25 See draft of letter by David Brown to the Acting Secretary of Government, Calcutta, 12 June 1810, Correspondence of David Brown. Archives of the British Association of Malaysia and Singapore, Royal Commonwealth Society, Cambridge University Library (hereafter RCMS) 103/13; General letter, 3 Sept. 1810, IOR/G/34/85, EICFR; I.H. Burkill, A dictionary of the economic products of the Malay Peninsula (London: Agents for the Colonies, 1935); Penang consultations, 1 Mar. 1810, quoted in Langdon, Penang, vol. 1, p. 264. Also see John Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Constable & Co., 1820), p. 442.

26 General Letter, 8 July 1818, IOR/G/34/85, EICFR; The Governor of Prince of Wales Island to the Court of Directors, 15 Mar. 1810, quoted in Cowan, ‘Early Penang’, pp. 41, 65.

27 G.W. Earl, ‘On the culture of cotton in the Straits Settlements’, JIA 4 (1850): 720–27; also see JIA 5 (1851): 69–73; T.O. Crane, ‘Remarks on the cultivation of cotton in Singapore’, JIA 5 (1851): 120–24; J. Balestier,‘View of the state of agriculture in the British possessions in the Straits of Malacca’, JIA 2 (1848): 150.

28 Marcus Langdon, Penang: The Fourth Presidency of India; volume 2: Fire, spice and edifice (Penang: George Town World Heritage, 2015), p. 27, fn. 24.

29 Low, A dissertation, p. 68; Balestier, ‘View of the state of agriculture’, p. 149; Cullin and Zehnder, The early history of Penang, p. 44; ‘A Bengal civilian’ [Charles Walter Kinloch], De Zieke Reiziger: or, Rambles in Java and the Straits. In 1852 (London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1853), p. 136. It had taken the Dutch in Java much experimentation to establish that coffee only thrives at altitudes of above 1,000 feet. Also see exchanges on coffee cultivation in Stamford Raffles to David Brown, 25 June 1821 and David Brown to Stamford Raffles, 2 Feb. 1822, Correspondence of David Brown, RCMS 103/13; General letter, 18 Sept. 1823, IOR/G/34/85, EICFR; Langdon, Penang, vol. 2, p. 456, fn. 65.

30 See, for example, H.R.C. Wright, ‘The Moluccan spice monopoly, 1770–1824’, JMBRAS 31, 4 (1958): 1–21.

31 Madeleine Ly-Tio-Fane, Mauritius and the spice trade. Vol. 2: The triumph of Jean Nicolas Céré and his Isle Bourbon collaborators (The Hague: Mouton & Co, 1970); Brockway, Science and colonial expansion, p. 50.

32 See Spary, ‘Of nutmegs and botanists’; Low, A dissertation, pp. 17–18.

33 Extract from Bengal Public Consultations, 17 Sept. 1802, IOR/G/34/9, EICFR; ‘Notices of Pinang’, JIA 5 (1851): 355.

34 A detailed account of the traffic in spice plants can be found in Langdon, Penang, vol. 2, chapter 5.

35 ‘Extract from public letter to Bengal’, 28 Sept. 1803, IOR/G/34/9, EICFR; Henry N. Ridley, Spices, vol. 2 (London: Macmillan & Co., 1912), p. 102; Hunter and Ridley, ‘Plants of Prince of Wales Island’, p. 119; ‘Notices of Penang’, JIA 5 (1851): 355. Penang's first nut ‘true’ nutmeg fruit was produced in 1800; see Langdon, Penang, vol. 1, pp. 216–21.

36 ‘Notices on Penang’, JIA 5 (1851): 359.

37 See Thomas, ‘The establishment of Calcutta Botanic Garden’.

38 For a detailed description of the botanic gardens in Penang, see Langdon, Penang, vol. 2, pp. 400–492.

39 Low, A dissertation, pp. 19–20; Hunter and Ridley, ‘Plants of Prince of Wales Island’, p. 119; Jackson, Planters and speculators, p. 102.

40 Langdon, Penang, vol. 1, p. 225. Also see Penang Gazette and Straits Chronicle, 20 Dec. 1806.

41 ‘Half yearly report of the state of the Prince of Wales Island on the 1st Jan 1805’, IOR/G/34/9, EICFR.

42 ‘Sale of the Company's Spice Plantation of Prince of Wales Island’, Bengal Public Consultations, 12 Nov. 1805, IOR/G/34/9, EICFR; ‘Notices of Penang’, JIA 5 (1851): 425; Langdon, Penang, vol. 2, pp. 448–50.

43 Cullin and Zehnder, The early history of Penang, p. 44; L. Forman, ‘The illustrations to William Hunter's “Plants of Prince of Wales Island”’, Kew Bulletin 44, 1 (1988): 151–61; Langdon, Penang, vol. 2, pp. 484–8.

44 See Jackson, Planters and speculators, table 7, p. 105.

45 Stevens, ‘A contribution’, p. 410; Arnold Wright, ed., Twentieth century impressions of Malaya (London: Lloyds Greater British Publishing Co., 1908), pp. 97–8.

46 See T.M. Ward, Contributions to the medical topography of Prince of Wales Island (Pinang: Government Press, 1830).

47 Singapore Chronicle, 11 Sept. 1834; See also ‘Agricultural produce’, Singapore Chronicle and Commercial Register, 29 Aug. 1834; Mills, ‘British Malaya’, p. 220.

48 See Pinang Gazette and Straits Chronicle, 28 July 1838.

49 Cameron, Our tropical possessions, p. 168; Low, A dissertation, p. 20.

50 Pinang Gazette and Straits Chronicle, 28 July 1838.

51 Jackson, Planters and speculators, pp. 106–10.

52 See ibid., p. 123, table 11.

53 Pinang Gazette and Straits Chronicle, 3 Mar. 1855; Agricultural Bulletin of the Malay Peninsula, 6 Apr. 1897, p. 99; Cameron, Our tropical possessions, p. 164; Turnbull, The Straits Settlements, p. 145.

54 Langdon, Penang, vol. 2, p. 425.

55 ‘Notices of Pinang’, JIA 5 (1851): 355, 358; Low, A dissertation, pp. 32–3; Langdon, Penang, vol. 2, p. 418.

56 Public Consultations, 5 July 1804, IOR/G/34/9, EICFR; Jackson, Planters and speculators, pp. 121–2. Also see Langdon, Penang, vol. 2, p. 441; ‘Notices of Penang’, JIA 5 (1851): 358.

57 See Brixius, ‘A hard nut to crack’.

58 Report from William Hunter, 1 July 1802, IOR/G/34/9, EICFR.

59 ‘Observations on the cultivation and treatment of the Molucca spice’, IOR/G/34/9, EICFR. The Dutch referred to Banda's nutmeg plantations as ‘perken’.

60 J. Kathirithamby-Wells, The British West Sumatran Presidency, 1760–1785: Problems of early colonial enterprise (Kuala Lumpur: Penerbit Universiti Malaya, 1977), p. 60.

61 Wright, ‘The Molucccan spice monopoly’, p. 52; ‘Sale of the Company's Spice Plantation of Prince of Wales Island’, Bengal Public consultations, 12 Nov. 1805, IOR/G/34/9, EICFR. Also see ‘State of the Spice plantations on Prince of Wales Island’, in Langdon, Penang, vol. 2, pp. 437–89; W.G. Miller, ‘Robert Farquhar in the Malay world’, JMBRAS 51, 2 (1978): 123–38.

62 Low, A dissertation, pp. 16–17; Ward, Contributions to the medical topography, p. 6.

63 British Foreign and Anti-Slavery Society, Slavery and the slave trade in British India; with notices on the existence of these evils in the Islands Ceylon, Malacca, and Penang (London: Thomas Ward & Co., 1841), pp. 67–70.

64 See copy of letter from Stamford Raffles to David Brown, 19 Mar. 1810, Correspondence of David Brown, RCMS 103/13.

65 ‘Notices of Penang’, JIA 5 (1851): 361; ‘The abolition of the Botanic Gardens of Penang’, Agricultural Bulletin of the Straits and Federated Malay States (Mar. 1910): 100–105.

66 Leith, A short account, p. 50; Low, A dissertation, p. 24; Cullin and Zehnder, The early history of Penang, p. 10.

67 Dr [John] Lumsdaine, ‘Cultivation of nutmegs and cloves in Bencoolen’, JIA 5 (1851): 84; John Crawfurd, A descriptive dictionary of the Indian Islands and adjacent countries (London: Bradbury & Evans, 1856), pp. 304–6; Leith, A short account, pp. 45–8; also see ‘Extracts from the letters of Col. Nahuijs’, JMBRAS 19, 2 (1941): 176.

68 Jackson, Planters and speculators, p. 99. The term sinkeh was used for newly arrived Chinese migrants.

69 F.L. Baumgarten, ‘Agriculture in Malacca’, JIA 3 (1849): 714.

70 Wright and Reid, The Malay Peninsula, p. 86; J.R. Logan (erroneously printed as ‘Lagan’): ‘Journal of an excursion from Singapúr to Malacca and Pínang’, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London 16 (1846): 304–31.

71 ‘Notices of Pinang’, JIA 4 (1850): 643.

72 James Trelawny Day, Letters from Bencoolen 1823–1828, during the Lieutenant-Governorship of Sir Stamford Raffles, 2nd edn (Kilkerran: Hardinge Simpole, 2012), pp. 5, 54, 62, 96, 97, 121; Lumsdaine, ‘Cultivation of nutmegs’, p. 84.

73 Calcutta to Penang, 2 May 1787 & Council to Prince of Wales Island, 23 Dec. 1789, IOR/G/34/2, EICFR; Popham, A description, p. 19; Lennon, ‘Journal of a voyage’, p. 57.

74 Low, A dissertation, p. 182; Ward, Contributions to the medical topography, p. 14; ‘Extracts from the letters of Col. Nahuijs’, p. 176; Report by William Hunter, 20 Apr. 1802, Bengal Consultations, IOR7G/34/9, EICFR.

75 Logan, ‘Journal of an excursion’, p. 305; Reid, A history, p. 194; Ridley, Spices, p. 120.

76 Ridley, Spices, p. 119; Lumsdaine, ‘Cultivation’, p. 80.

77 Balestier, ‘View of the state of agriculture’, pp. 142, 150.

78 Lumsdaine, ‘Cultivation’, pp. 79–80.

79 Annual report on the administration of the Straits Settlements, for the year 1865–1866 (Singapore: Government Press), p. 45.

80 Ridley, Spices, pp. 119–20; Logan, ‘Journal of an excursion’, pp. 304–31.

81 Stamford Raffles to David Brown, 25 June 1821; Copy of Brown's letter to Stamford Raffles, 25 June 1821, Correspondence of David Brown, RCMS 103/13; Low, A dissertation, pp. 32–3; Lumsdaine, ‘Cultivation’, p. 78; J.R. Logan, ‘The agriculture of Singapore’, JIA 3 (1849): 510; T. Oxley, ‘Some account of the nutmeg and its cultivation’, JIA 2 (1848): 649; Crawfurd, A descriptive dictionary, p. 305.

82 Ridley, Spices, pp. 117, 126–7.

83 See Pinang Gazette and Straits Chronicle, 13 Mar. and 29 Sept. 1855.

84 Annual report on the administration of the Straits Settlements, for the year 1855–56 (Singapore: Government Press), p. 18.

85 Jackson, Planters and speculators, p. 126.

86 Bengal Consultations, 20 Apr. 1802, IOR/G/34/9, EICFR; ‘Remarks on the state of the weather of Prince of Wales Island’, Extract from Public Consultations, 7 July 1804, IOR/G/34/9, EICFR.

87 Low, A dissertation, p. 35; Ward, Contributions to the medical topography, p. 21; R. Logan, ‘Sketch of the physical geography and geology of the Malay peninsula, JIA 2 (1848): 110–11.

88 Pinang Gazette, 6 Jan., 27 Jan., 10 Feb. 1844.

89 Ward, Contributions to the medical topography, pp. 16–21.

90 T.J. Newbold, Political and statistical account of the British settlements in the Straits of Malacca, vol. 1 (London: J. Murray, 1839), p. 103; J.R. Logan, ‘The probable effects on the climate of Pinang of the continued destruction of its hill jungles’, JIA 2 (1848): 534–6; Logan, ‘Sketch of the physical geography’, p. 110.

91 Fort William Proceedings in Council, 2 May 1786, quoted in Langdon, Penang, vol. 2, p. 399.

92 John Turnbull Thomson, Glimpses into life in Malayan lands (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 28.

93 ‘Remarks on the climate, soil and cultivation of Penang and Province Wellesley’, Singapore Chronicle and Commercial Register, 11 Sept. 1834; Crawfurd, A descriptive dictionary, pp. 304–6; Also see Jackson, Planters and speculators, pp. 109–10, fig. 21.

94 Turnbull, The Straits Settlements, p. 145; Jackson, Planters and speculators, pp. 109–10; Pinang Gazette and Straits Chronicle, 3 Mar. 1855. Also see ‘Nutmeg cultivation in the Straits’, Overland Singapore Free Press, 31 July 1851.

95 Low, A dissertation, pp. 3–4; ‘Some account of Prince of Wales Island’, Simmond's Colonial Magazine and foreign Miscellany 6, 24 (1845): 382, 385. For Singapore, see ‘A Bengal Civilian’ [Charles Walter Kinloch], Rambles in Java, p. 125.

96 J.T. Thomson, ‘A sketch of the career of the late James Richardson Logan of Penang and Singapore’, JSBRAS 7 (1881): 76–7.

97 The Journal of the Indian Archipelago (1847–58), founded and edited by Logan, dealt with a variety of topics such as geology, ethnography and geography, and was the first publication of its kind to transmit knowledge about Southeast Asia to a British reading public.

98 Logan, ‘The probable effects’, p. 535; also see Crawfurd, A descriptive dictionary, pp. 304–6.

99 Grove, Green imperialism, pp. 378–9; Richard H. Grove, ‘The East India Company, the Raj and the El Niño: The critical role played by colonial scientists in establishing the mechanisms of global climate teleconnections, 1770–1930’, in Nature and the Orient: The environmental history of South and Southeast Asia, ed. Richard H. Grove et al. (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 301–23.

100 Grove, Green imperialism, p. 438. See P.F.H Fromberg, Over den invloed door vermindering of uitroeijing van houtsbosschen uitgeofend op het klimaat (Batavia: Lange & Co., 1855).

101 Hugh Cleghorn, Forbes Royle, R. Baird Smith and R. Strachey, ‘Report of the Committee appointed by the British Association to consider the probable effects in an œconomical and physical point of view of the destruction of tropical forests’, in Report of the Twenty-first meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (London: John Murray, 1852), pp. 90–91.

102 J.S. Wilson, ‘On the progressing desiccation of the basin of the Orange River …’, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society 9 (1865): 122. For Logan's publication and later forest protection schemes in Malaya, see Jeyamalar Kathirithamby-Wells, Nature and nation: Forests and development in Peninsular Malaysia (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2005), esp. p. 40; Also see Grove, Green imperialism, chap. 8.

103 Kyd to Light, Fort William Proceedings in Council 14 Mar. 1788, quoted in Langdon, Penang, vol. 2, p. 400.

104 Turnbull, The Straits Settlements, p. 140; V.W.W.S. Purcell, Early Penang (Pinang Gazette Press, 1928), p. 43.

105 See, for example, Singapore Chronicle, 9 Sept. 1837.

106 See Gregory T. Cushman, Guano and the opening of the Pacific world (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 27; Jimmy M. Skaggs, The guano rush: Entrepreneurs and American overseas expansion (London: Macmillan, 1994), pp. 2–5; Edward D. Melillo, ‘The first green revolution: Debt peonage and the making of nitrogen fertilizer trade, 1840–1930’, American Historical Review 117, 4 (2012): 1035–38. For bat guano see Logan, ‘Journal of an excursion’, p. 305.

107 Cleghorn et al., ‘Report of the Committee’, p. 91; Skinner, A.M., ‘Straits Meteorology’, Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 12 (1883): 245–55Google Scholar. See Kathirithamby-Wells, Nature and nation, pp. 63–8; Richard H. Grove, Ecology, climate and empire: Colonialism and global environmental history, 1400–1940 (Cambridge: White Horse Press, 1997), p. 134.

108 See Williamson, Fiona, ‘Weathering the empire: Meteorological research in the early British Straits Settlements’, British Journal for the History of Science 48, 3 (2015): 475–92CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

109 See David Arnold, The tropics and the travelling gaze: India, landscape and science, 1800–1856 (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005), chap. 3; Kathirithamby-Wells, Forest and nation, pp. 39–40.

110 Crawfurd, A descriptive dictionary, p. 332.

111 See Jayeeta Sharma, Empire's garden: Assam and the making of India (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011); Kavita Philip, Civilising natures: Race, resources and modernity in colonial South India (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2003), p. 48.

112 Little, R., ‘Diseases of the nutmeg tree’, JIA 3 (1849): 678Google Scholar. Also see Christina Skott, ‘A view from the Hill: Romantic imaginings and “improvement” in early Penang’, in Penang and its networks of knowledge, ed. Peter Zabielskis, Yeoh Seng Guan and Kat Fatland (Penang: Areca, 2017), pp. 135–60.

113 See Brixius, ‘A hard nut to crack’.

114 See, for example, Schiebinger and Swan, Colonial botany.

115 Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago: The land of the orang-utan, and the bird of paradise (London: Macmillan & Co., 1896), p. 295; Ridley, Spices, p. 116.

116 Baumgarten, ‘Agriculture in Malacca’.

117 Oxley, ‘Some account’, JIA 2 (1848): 642. See, for example, Little, ‘Diseases of the nutmeg tree’, p. 679.

118 See Lynn Hollen Lees, Planting empire, cultivating subjects: British Malaya 1786–1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), chap. 1.

119 Low, A dissertation, p. 470; Balestier, ‘View of the state of agriculture’, p. 142; Annual report on the administration of the Straits Settlements, for the year 1863–64 (Singapore: Government Press), p. 33; Annual report on the administration of the Straits Settlements, for the year 1865–1866 (Singapore: Government Press), p. 45.

120 ’Notices of Penang’, JIA 5 (1851): 164.

121 See, for example, Hazareensingh, Sandip, ‘Cotton, climate and colonialism in Dharwar, western India, 1840–1880’, Journal of Historical Geography 38 (2012): 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

122 ‘Some notes upon agriculture in the Settlement of Penang’, Appendix to Straits Settlements Annual Report, 1881, p. 189; Annual report on the administration of the Straits Settlements, for the year 1861–2, p. 36. Also see ‘A Bengal civilian’ [Charles Walter Kinloch], Rambles in Java, pp. 136–7.