There are many highland settlements known as “hill stations” or “summer resorts” in Southeast Asian countries under the tropical and subtropical climate. The hill station is not a native institution, but one developed during the nineteenth century by the British and Dutch colonial masters in order to make sojourns in a foreign land more comfortable. In southern Japan, the worst period is from June through August, though its intensity does not compare with that farther south. In Malaysia and Indonesia, the period extends throughout the year.
The Cameron Highlands is the most famous hill station in Peninsular Malaysia being one of colonial origin. The Cameron Highlands is located between 1, 000 and 1, 500 meters above sea level on the main range of central Malaysia. Today, the Cameron Highlands is mainly a summer resort, but it is also a very important mid-latitude vegetable growing area.
The development of the Cameron Highlands began only after 1926, though it was discovered by, and named after, William CAMERON in 1885. Almost simultaneous with the opening of the Cameron Highlands as a hill resort was the growth and development of vegetable farming by farmers of Chinese origin. There are also three new vegetable farming settlements developed after World War II.
Some 47 per cent of the inhabitants of the Cameron Highlands are Chinese Malaysian, and they shoulder the vegetable growing business. The temperate vegetables in the Cameron Highlands are mostly to be found above 1, 000 meters above sea level. Some twenty-five types of mid-latitude vegetables are cultivated here, though the main crops are Chinese cabbage, English cabbage and tomatoes, which are popular with most of the people in Malaysia. Almost all the vegetable seeds are imported from Japan.
Farm labor on the vegetable farms, which average one to two acres in the Highlands, is normally family labor. Large amounts of chicken dung are used as fertilizer, and farming is very intensive. Crops such as spinach, bell pepper (paprika), and celery are grown under cover to protect them from the rather heavy rains that fall around here. Each farmer follows his own judgement in the choice of crops to grow with a mind to the vegetable price in the markets. Therefore, there is no established cycle of crops.
Today, most of the vegetables produced in the Cameron Highlands are transported by large trucks to the main cities in Peninsular Malaysia, and some 25-30% are exported to Singapore.
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