October i, 18S3.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



299 



guarantee that. It was certainly satisfactory to know 

 that the milk Howed- so freely. On Wednesday last 

 he tapped 18 trees in 53 minutes aud got 10 ounces of 

 pure rubber. He estimated that a good mau and a 

 cool.v, fully up to their work, on fair ground, could 

 tap 200 trees a day. He had brought samples for 

 the inspection of his brother planter? which he ehould 

 be very happy to lay before them. (Applause.) 



Mr. Gilliiit then handed round samples of the 

 rubber he had taken aud answered any questions made 

 with reference to them. 



Mr. Huxley said he might say he tapped three 

 trees and each t"ok five minutes, and in that time he 

 got from them SJ ounces of rubber and also over half 

 an ounce of refuse rubber, and one of thess trees he 

 iiad tapped three days before. 



Mr. Gibbon : — May I ask the age of that tree ? 



Mr. Huxley: — It was four years old. 



The Chairman (Mr. Wall) : — I think we are very 

 much indebted to Mr. Gilliat and Mr. Huxley for the 

 information they have afforded ue. This is a subject 

 which has been hitherto rather a perplexing one and one 

 of which there has been no delinate solution arrived at. 

 I have myseli personally f:iven a great deal of at- 

 tention to this matter and I arrived at the conclusion 

 — very probably a premature one — that any plan that 

 materially interferes with the bark, especially anything 

 that cuts through any length of the bark, even though 

 it should not cut into the cambium, is very objec- 

 tionable. I have trees so treated, perhaps severely, a 

 year ago and those trees are scarcely of any value 

 at all owing to the difficulty of tapping the bark 

 that ha? been renewed over the wounds. The ex- 

 ptrimcnts I have hitherto made are not of a natura 

 to justify any conclusions. The experience of a life 

 which has been in a considerable measure devoted to 

 experiments of a scientffic nature has taught me not 

 to draw any conclusions until the matter has been 

 under my notice sufficiently long to justify eome con- 

 clusions. The efforts I have made have been in 

 various directions, I have used tools of every kind, 

 and given them all up. In the first place I have 

 eudavoured, without cutting deeply into the bark 

 at all to take » slight shaving off. Tlie object of that 

 was to lay bare as many of the lacteals as possible 

 without making any injuiy to the bark, and I found 

 so far as my experiments went that I could get 

 DO more milk from the portion that was laid bare 

 to a considerable area, than I got by a cut, and 

 when I tried trees of the same age which had 

 been grown in the same soil and which were in 

 fact, contiguous to each other, I found to my 

 surprise, that the pricking of the bark, without any 

 other interference, — I have employed a pricker some- 

 whnt resembling a comb but much larger, and having 

 its teeth more asunder, and by a single stroke of the 

 prickfr, which has a handle on to reach from the 

 top of the troe to the bottom, — I found I got as much 

 milk from these punctures as I did from the cut 

 in the bark, or from the exposure of the lactial.". 

 That is the result of any experiments so f-ir as I 

 have carried tlicm. I therefore have looked upon it 

 as almost a settled question in my own mic d that 

 if you can get by a puncture a sufficient quantitv 

 of milk, especially if you get as much that way as 

 by a cut, you may repeat the op ration much more 

 frequently and with much less damage to the tree. 

 Visitiiig trees 1 had tapped the morning previous, I 

 found thfm on the following morning, as far as could 

 be seen, to be perfectly healed. The experiments with 

 the prickers and the results of them will be laid 

 before you as soon as they are ripe for it, to see how far 

 this mode of extraction can be carried out. There is 

 no doubt that with regard to the priparatiou oi the 

 milk we are deeply indebted to Hhomsoever it was j 



who suggested the application of a little spirit, for 

 it is marvellous how quickly and effectually it operates. 

 Tip to that time our plan was to take a cake of milk 

 and after it had congealed sutficieutly to bear a little 

 pressure, to give a little squeeze and this squeezed out 

 the fatty matter which impairs the value of the 

 rubber, and this can be repented till the rubber assumes 

 a hard and merchantable form, but I am not prepared 

 to fay it is so white or pure as this (referring to a 

 piece of Mr. Gilliat's rubbrr). The experiments our 

 brother planters are carrying out will be most im- 

 portant, and, as I said before, as soon as the result 

 of my experiments is such that I can offer it to you 

 with confidence, I shall be very ready to do so, but 

 in the meantime I only report progress up to ilate. 

 I am sure the meeting will join me in thanking Mr, 

 Gilliat aud Mr. Huxley (cheers.) 



Mr. Gllliat : There is one point I have missed, and 

 that was to tell yon that we cannot say whether any 

 profit can be made on it until we have a quotation 

 from London. It seems to be impossible to get one iu 

 Colombo ; of all our merchants we have not one who is 

 an expert iu rubber. I tried ou Monday in Colombo 

 but there was no one who cauld give me a quotation, and 

 so it was sent home and we shall get a quotation 

 from London. We know there is no injury done to it 

 by this process. Of course I shall be very happy to 

 lay it before the Association when everything is ready. 



Milk Powdek, mixed with powder of beef, is 

 reported as having been used successfully by Dr. 

 Dujardin-Beaumetz in keeping up the strength of 

 coniumptive patients. For use both articles are dis- 

 solved in ordinary milk, and the stomach is said 

 to be very tolerant of mixture. — Queenslandcr. 



Out of Seasok Coffee Blossojls are the subject of a 

 letter (Sept. 26th) from the Kotagaloya division of 

 Dimbula to the following effect :— "There is one 

 particularity, iu connexion with our unhappy coffee 

 trees, that I have not seen commented upon, though it 

 seems to me of great importance, and of vast influence 

 on the crops or rather the absence of crops : I allude 

 to the immense extent of untimely blossom. In the 

 last six months there has been a constant succession 

 of blossom throughout all the parts of this district 

 that I have seen. If a quarter of this blossom bad 

 been productive, we should have had very large crops, 

 but some of it never gets beyond the spike utage, and 

 none of it ever produces fruit. Today there are many 

 patches on this estate white with well-developed flowers, 

 but, like their forerunners, I expect they will come to 

 nothing, the trees look very well, aud in former days 

 such a show of flowers would have given promise of 

 at least 2 cwt. an acre, but now it only excites a 

 fear that its presence will be very injurious to the 

 protiuciton of the blossom that should appear in its 

 due season, A notice of this fact from you may bring 

 about discussion." It looks as if the debilitated trees 

 were following their instincts in favour of reproduction, 

 by exerting all their strength in the formation of 

 blossom with a view to fruit, which after all they 

 hai e not strength to foim and mature. The fact gives 

 us a new view of the terrible effects of the fungus, 

 aided no doubt, by the abnormal seasons. Planters 

 who have studied the question will no doubt express 

 their thoughts on the causes and the remedies of plenty 

 blossom and little or no fruit. 



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