Note 31 — Chapter I

The Dutch, apprehensive of a failure in the usual supply of teak timber, have long been in the habit of forming extensive plantations of this tree; but whether from a sufficient period not having yet elapsed for the trial, or that the plantations are generally made in soils and situations ill calculated for the purpose, experience, as far as it has yet gone, has shown, that the trees which are left to the operations of nature, attain to greater perfection, even in a comparatively barren soil, unfit for any other cultivation, than those which are with great care and trouble reared in a fertile land. Their wood is more firm, more durable, and of a less chalky substance than that of the latter.