M. J. Tiele was the Deli tobacco agronomist who introduced the practice of picking individual leaves rather than harvesting the whole tobacco plant, and who made fundamental improvements to soil preparation that Volker credits as “the first steps toward perfected modern cultivation” (“de eerste schreden naar de volmaakte moderne cultuur”) in the Deli tobacco industry.
Agronomic innovations
The tobacco culture that Nienhuys established on the East Coast of Sumatra from 1863 onward was initially practiced by pulling or cutting the whole plant. Tiele’s leaf-picking method — harvesting each leaf individually as it reached optimal maturity — increased the quality and consistency of the wrapper leaf that made Deli tobacco internationally renowned. His improvements to soil preparation, recorded in Dr. T. Volker’s survey of 1928, similarly contributed to the evolution of Deli cultivation from a pioneering experiment into the systematized operation of the late-colonial period.
Volker places Tiele’s innovations in the context of the 1870s–1880s period, when the Deli tobacco belt was expanding rapidly under the leadership of the Deli Maatschappij and the organizational framework provided by the Deli Planters Vereeniging (founded 23 April 1879).
Significance
Tiele’s work belongs to the wider history of agronomic improvement in the Gouvernement Oostkust, a history that also included the creation of the first Arbeidsinspectie (Labour Inspection Service) in 1907 and the gradual transformation of the tobacco belt from a high-risk frontier enterprise into a regulated colonial economy. The leaf-picking technique he pioneered remained standard practice in the Deli tobacco industry for decades.
See Also
- Jacobus Nienhuys
- Deli Planters Vereeniging
- Deli Maatschappij
- Gouvernement Oostkust van Sumatra
- Van Oerbosch tot Cultuurgebied
- J. T. Cremer
- 1879
- 1907
Source
Van Oerbosch tot Cultuurgebied: Een Schets van de Beteekenis van de Tabak, de Andere Cultures en de Industrie ter Oostkust van Sumatra, by Dr. T. Volker (Medan: Deli Planters Vereeniging, 1928), pp. 25–30. Delpher Digital Library, reference DLP-76. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, shelfmark 09383.