W. Westerman was a Dutch agricultural expert and author of De tabakscultuur op Sumatra’s Oostkust (“The Tobacco Cultivation on Sumatra’s East Coast”), published in Amsterdam in 1901 with numerous plates, in royal octavo format. The work was offered in 1902 by the bookseller Martinus Nijhoff at 7.50 florins in commemoration of the third centenary of the Dutch East India Company.
Work
Westerman’s monograph on the tobacco cultivation of the East Coast of Sumatra — the Deli and Serdang region — was the standard work on what was one of the most valuable agricultural industries in the Netherlands Indies. The East Coast tobacco plantations, established from the 1860s onwards, had transformed the region into one of the world’s premier cigar-wrapper tobacco producing areas. While the work focused on the East Coast rather than on Atjeh itself, the economic ties between the East Coast plantation zone and the Atjeh hinterland — including labour migration and trade connections — made this work relevant to the broader economic history of northern Sumatra.
Source
A List of the Best Books Relating to Dutch East India, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague (1902).