8so THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [May i, 1884- 



seed and the dark colour of its interior, already noticed as characteristic of these sorts, are not so 

 favoured in the home market as the rounder shape and pale interior of our ordinary red kind. 

 Whether this estimate has any foundation in actual quality or is a mere trade fancy in a particular 

 market cannot he said ; there are, however, several distinct varieties among the pale-fruited kinds, 

 and it would be well if the produce of each could be separately cured and the markets tested 



with each. 



The varieties received from Trinidad in IsS] are being allowed to fruit this season, and pods 

 have ripened already on trees of " C'undeamar," "Cayenne," and " Forastero." Though these 

 have all been red-podded, yet in each of them the interi(n- of the seed is more or less deeply violet- 

 purple (like our pale varieties), and none as yet examined present the yellowish-white section of 

 the seeds of our ordinary " Ceylon" cacao. 



Specimens have been sent to me from a few estates of young pods and tender shoots in a 

 dried-up, shrivelled or drooping condition. This " blight" has been considered due to a fungus, 

 hut on examination can be clearly seen to be the result of very numerous punctures of a sucking 

 insect. This 1 have obtained, and it jn-oves to be a species of Hdopeltis, apparently identical with 

 the H. Anton'd, so destructive to cinchona in Java, and probably also with the H. thelcora, the 

 tea-buo- or " mosquito blight" of the Assam tea gardens. This Hemipterous insect is armed with 

 a very "long sucking proboscis, and may be known very readily by the curious spike projecting 

 upwards from the thorax and capped with a knob like a pin's head. It has not, I believe, been 

 noticed in Ceylon until the present year, but may probably have previously existed, this group of 

 insects beino- little studied. It is to be hoped that this mischievous little insect will keep within 

 hounds. 



India Rubber* Ceara.—k planted area of 977 acres is credited to this, but rubber has not 

 yet appeared among our exports. Since it has been ascertained that the quality is excellent,! culti- 

 vators have been e°ndeavouring to discover a means by which the milk can be obtained at a cost 

 sufficiently h)w to give a return, but without, as yet, encouraging results. The removal of the 

 outer separable bark, as practised in the experiments referred to in my last report, has been 

 objected to on the ground that the bark formed in its stead is of a different character, very hard 

 and inseparable from the green layer a second time. Instruments have therefore been devised^ 

 for bleedino- without such removal. A knife with two parallel blades, which took out a strip of 

 bark, has been modified into one in which the very sharp cutting edges meet to form a V, the 

 basal ano-le during use being at the cambium. 'Another invention avoids all cuttiug, being a 

 double spur-like wheel with sliarp but guarded points which puncture the bark without further 

 injury. The milking (one can scarcely call it tapping) has also been practised on trees of various 

 ao-es and at differenrintervajs and seasons. While it is found that the yield of individual trees 

 varies extremely,! none of the experimenters is satisfied that the small quantity obtainable by 

 present methods is sufticient to make the cultivation profitable at the existing price of rubber. 

 Mr. Wall, however, who states that hundreds of young trees have been bled dalhj with the 

 " pricker" for some weeks, and that thus a cooly can collect about half a pound of dry rubber 

 per diem, thinks that, if trees will bear this treatment for 240 days in the year, the cultivation 

 would be remunerative. It appears evident that milking must be repeated at frequent intervals, 

 and (as often already pointed out) the cultivation be conducted on a large scale. Much of the 

 35 000 acres in private hands in Ceylon at present growing nothing but Lantana and other weeds 

 is suitable for this hardy plant, which costs nothing to cultivate, affords a substance of a value 

 which is continually increasing, and awaits only the discovery of a process by which the latter 

 can be cheaply and exhaustively extracted. 



Castilloa Rubber.— Vmm a single tree at rcradeniya a considerable crop ot seedlings was 

 raised. The fruits ripened at the end'of May ; they are little, white, pointed nuts, about half an 

 inch long, covered by a bright orange pulp, and some 20 to 30 are crowded together on the fleshy 

 flattened°'scaly receptacle, forming collectively what is called a compound fruit : about half of 

 the fruits ripen and contain each a single seed. I have already expressed my opinion as to the 



* The import of Caoutcliouc into Great Britain during 1882 amouiitetl to nearly twenty million pounds. 



t I am informed tliat as mui-b as 4.v. a pound has been obtained fur Cevlon Ceara rubber. 



+ This is to be expected ; for it should be recollected that the •' milk" in plants is ([uite distinct from their 

 «ip, and is contained in special channels. It has no nutritive function, but, like the alkabiids in cinchona, is rather 

 of the nature of an excretion. Its removal, therefore, y)e;- se, inllicts little or no injury on the plant. 



