Plantation and Mercantile Activity
Seah Eu Chin was a successful plantation owner. He was the first to plant gambier (or white cutch) on a large scale in Singapore. By 1839, his gambier plantation had stretched for eight to ten miles, from the upper end of River Valley Road to Bukit Timah Road and Thomson Road. Mr Seah's holdings earned him the title: 'King of Gambier'. He made his fortune in gambier and pepper plantations. However, by the 1850s-60s, the planting of gambier and pepper was becoming less profitable in Singapore for several reasons, including the increasing scarcity of uncleared land for planting (gambier quickly exhausted the soil and so plantations had to keep shifting), the shortage of firewood from the clearing of forests, and the lack of land on Singapore Island itself.
Therefore in his later years, he became involved in trading as a merchant and agent under the name of Eu Chin Co. which was based in North Bridge Road. His sons, especially the eldest, Seah Cheo Seah, and second son Seah Liang Seah, helped manage the business, as did his brother-in-law, Tan Seng Poh.
Read more about this topic: Seah Eu Chin
Famous quotes containing the words plantation, mercantile and/or activity:
“Greece is a sort of American vassal; the Netherlands is the country of American bases that grow like tulip bulbs; Cuba is the main sugar plantation of the American monopolies; Turkey is prepared to kow-tow before any United States pro-consul and Canada is the boring second fiddle in the American symphony.”
—Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (1909–1989)
“What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity or perception to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: rapture.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)