October i, 1884.J THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



287 



ray attention was attracted to the manner in which it 

 was collected. The quantity exported was rapidly diminish- 

 ing, when in I8S0, 1 advised the Government, as the only 

 means oi' preventing the annih'lation of the species, the 

 young trees of which were being rapidly cut down, to 

 forbid the export altogether. 



7. Old trees had become so scarce that we had great 

 difficulty in securing flowering and fruiting specimens, ami 

 I have, as noticed in the diary of my late expedition to 

 the upper waters of the Perak River, ascertained that the 

 central parts of the Peninsula cannot, in all eases, as has 

 been supposed, be trust. -.1 to produce an inexhaustible 

 supply. On the light saudy soils which prevail there, 

 none of the " tjctali taban" trees are seen, and the natives 

 assured me that although the kinds of Indiarubber called 

 "getah rambong" (Ficus elastica) and the "getah sengyarip" 

 { Willoughbeia) had been common, the Dichopsia or Ison- 

 andra and the Payena, which is nearly of equal value, were 

 quite unknown. These were, however, very common on 

 the ranges of mountains near to the Straits of Malacca 

 and on the lands bordering the sea-coasts, where the clim- 

 ate is much more moist aud the soil is a stiff clayey loam 

 resting upon granite, while the lighter soils of^ Upper 

 Perak are on slates, schists and other metamorphic rocks. 



8. As the more economical mode of dealing with the 

 product of the " gutta " trees brought to notice by Mr. 

 Wray — collecting the bark instead of the gum — will be 

 of great importance to such States as still have a supply, 

 I would recommend that Mr. Wray's Keport be published 

 in the Straits Settlements Government Gazette or in the 

 Straits Branch of the Asiatic Society's Journal, so that, 

 what there seems no reason to doubt, is a valuable eco- 

 nomic discovery, which it is quite likely may be equally 

 applicable to other gums or Indiarubber -bearing trees, may 

 be made known as widely as possible. It might even, 

 with advantage to the commerce of the Straits Settle- 

 ments, be translated into Malay. 



Hugh Low, 

 Resident, Perak. 



Mr. L. Wray, Jr., to Sir Hugh ~Lovj, Resident of Perak, 



dated the 25th Septi mber, 188$ 



Slit, — I have the honor to inform you, that in pursuance 

 of the request you made some months ago, I turned my 

 attention to the study of those trees from which the Gutta 

 Percha of commerce is procured ; and I now beg to pre- 

 sent to you my Report, embodying the result of those 

 studies up to the present time ; and solicit your special 

 attention to that portion which relates to my discovery of 

 the large quantity of Gutta Percha that mav be extracted 

 from the bark, which is now entirely wasted. 



I have sent hotai.ieal specimens, and, in most cases 

 samples of gutta and wood, of nearly all the trees I have 

 mentioned, to the Royal Gardens at Kew, and also to the 

 Royal Botanic Gardens, Calcutta, anil the Royal Botanic 

 Gardens, Ceylon; so that when the eminent botanists at 

 those establishments have examined and compared the 

 several specimens, the mystery in which their botanical 

 identification has been hitherto so completely enshrouded 

 will, I venture to hope, be satisfactorily solved. 



Getah Taban Merah {JJickopsis Gutta, oa / landra Gutta.) 



This tree, from which the best kind of Gutta Percha 

 is obtained, grows, or rather used to grow, throughout 

 the jungles of the plains of Perak and a short way up 

 the sides of the hills. 



It seems to like a considerable amount of moisture, and 

 will even grow with its roots in a running stream. It is 

 a tree of large size, attaining a diameter of 4 to 5 feet, 

 and a height of between km and 200 feet. 



It has large thin buttresses around its base, which ofteu 

 present, on their upper portions, a convex profile, and. on 

 a large tree, attain a height of 6 to 8 feet, and a span 

 at the base of 4 to 5 feet from the trunk. As far as I 

 have yet seen, they never form an arch, but have their 

 lower parts buried in the earth, from tho trunk tu their 

 extremities. 



When growing in the forest, the tree has a clean, straight 

 appearance, the former being due apparently to the bark 

 peeling off in irregular pieces. The bark is of a rich brown- 

 red colour, aud from one-third to half an inch in thickness. 



Inside the epidermis it is of an Indian-red tint ; and 



when cut, the milk white sap oozes out, at first in smal 

 beads, which, enlarging, soon join and covers the injured' 

 part with a coating of a cream-like consistency. The leaves 

 are lanceolate on a young tree, and roundish oval with 

 abrubtly acumiuative points on a tree of mature growth. 

 The margiu is entire, and they are covered on their inider- 

 surface, with minute silky warm-brown hairs. The leaf 

 stalks and young wood are also covered in a similar 

 manner, which gives the whole tree, when looked at from 

 below, a brownish tint, by which the tree may generally 

 be recognised. The upper surface of the leal is dark 

 green, and the veins are not prominent. The calyx con- 

 sists of six sepals, three of which are superior to the others 

 and alternate with them. 



They are coated, like the backs of the leaves, with 

 silky-brown hairs. The corolla is white, and is divided 

 into six petals. The style, which is simple, is sometimes 

 persistent, and may he seen on the ripe fruit. There are 

 six ovuies, but one or two seeds only arrive at maturity. 

 On the apex of the young fruit, the six carpels of which 

 it is formed can be distinctly traced. The fruit is coated, 

 like the backs of the leaves, with brown down; its flesh 

 is soft, and it is sweet, but it has a disagreeable flavour 

 of gutta percha. 



The seeds are very oily, and they are, together with 

 some of the seeds of nearly allied species, collected by the 

 Malays and the Sakais, who dry them in the sun for some 

 days, and then express the oil by putting them between 

 two flat pieces of wood, and applying pressure by clamps 

 and wedges. 



The oil, which is solid at the ordinary temperature (that 

 is up to 90°), is highly esteemed for cooking purposes. 

 Birds, squirrels, monkeys, &e., are very fond of the fruit 

 and of the seeds, which adds to the difficulty of obtain- 

 ing them. 



It flowers in the month of March and ripens its fruit 

 in June; but the Malays assert that it only fruits once 

 m three or four years. 



The gutta of this variety is red, and the colour is not 

 due to an admixture of bark as is frequently stated. It 

 is probable that other varieties of gutta may be sometimes 

 mixed with bark to make them look like Taban Meruit, 

 and so command a higher price than they otherwise would ; 

 but the true Getah Taban Merah is red per se, and the 

 water in which it is cleaned, although changed many times, 

 still becomes deeply dyed with that colour. Specimens of 

 this, in fruit, together with wood, bark, and gutta, I sent 

 to the Royal Gardens at Kew, Calcutta, and Ceylon, on 

 May 30th, 1883. 



Method of collecting the Getah Taban Merah. 



A tree having been found, a staging of saplings tied 

 together with roots or rattans is erected round it, so that 

 it can be cut above the spreading buttresses. The tree is 

 then felled with a little Malay axe called a •'be/iong," and 

 as it lies on the ground, V shaped rings, about one inch 

 broad, are cut in the hark, at intervals of 15 to 18 inches, 

 all along the whole length of the trunk, and of the large 

 branches, with a heavy chopping knife, called a "parang." 

 These cuts soon become filled with the white cream-like 

 sap. and in about half au hour the gutta will have separ- 

 ated from the aqueous portion of the sap, and may then 

 I be removed by rolling a small ball of it round in the cuts, 

 to the edge of which the coagulated gum adheres and 

 forms a disc, varying in size according to the number of 

 scores it is rolled in. 



These discs are then boiled iu water and made into balls, 

 and sold by the collectors to the men who export it to 

 Penang or Singapore. 



The gutta is at first pure white, hut soon changes to 

 pink, and finally to a brownish-red. The water in which 

 the gum is boiled becomes a dark red-brown, and this 

 colouration is the most distinctive feature that this variety 

 of gutta possesses, and by which it may he easily recog- 

 nised 



The air seems to have on the sap an effect analogous 

 to that of rennet on milk, coagulating the gummy por- 

 tions so rapidly, that only a small quantity of their watery 

 stuff runs out of the cuts, all the gutta percha remaining 

 as a soft spongy mass in the scores. 



The amount of gutta obtained from a single tree appears 

 I to have been greatly over-estimated in the accounts that 



