i 7 8 



sizes of trees so treated will probably be less than those of 

 specimens which have never had their bark so excised and otherwise 

 mutilated. Time will certainly prove the wisdom or error of 

 planting Para rubber trees ten to fifteen feet apart, as most estates 

 in Ceylon appear to be so planted. Systematic paring away of 

 the bark of rubber trees will as assuredly change the habit and 

 ultimate dimensions of the mature trees, as has the contsant 

 plucking of the leaves of tea plants, and the peeling of the 

 cinchona bark. 



ORIGINAL AND PERMANENT DISTANCE. 



It is taken for granted that the reader is familiar with the sizes 

 of Para rubber plants from their first to their thirtieth year in 

 different soils and climates ; the question to discuss is whether the 

 original should be the permanent distance. No one who has seen 

 the uncultivated thirty-year-old trees at Henaratgoda can doubt 

 that such specimens require at the very least, a distance of thirty 

 to forty feet, if they are to be allowed to continue in their growth 

 and maintain a healthy constitution ; what the required distance 

 will be when they are 40 to 50 years old it would be unwise to 

 predict. In striking contrast to this are the thin, tall stems of two 

 to four year old trees, and the poor lateral spread of the foliage 

 when they have just reached the tappable size. Between the first 

 year of tapping and that represented by the old Henaratgoda trees, 

 is a gap of 25 years — probably the equivalent of a longer period 

 when the newly-bearing trees are regularly tapped, year in and 

 year out. I am of the opinion — though I may be wrong — that it is 

 absolute folly to plant, in a clearing, Para rubber trees alone, at a 

 distance which they will require when thirty years old ; we are 

 dealing with a species which does not, like cocoa and similar plants, 

 attain the greater part of its maximum size in the first six or seven 

 years, but with one which continues to grow, year by year, and 

 even when thirty years old, still keeps on growing and throwing 

 its roots into new soil. Though Para rubber trees continue to 

 grow in this manner, though the ultimate size to which they will 

 attain can only be roughly guessed at from our scanty knowledge 

 and experience, yet we know that when their stems are only 20 

 inches in circumference they yield marketable rubber in very satis- 

 factory quantities. Four to six years is a long time to wait for 

 the first returns, and from a commercial standpoint the distance 

 at which trees can be planted, without entailing undue interference 

 in general development, and brought into bearing in their fourth 

 year upwards is the one to be decided. Of course when trees are 

 widely planted they come into bearing as early as when closely 

 planted but there is no very great difference in dimensions of 

 trees planted at widely different distances up to their fourth year; 

 the growth in the first four years is not as conspicuous as in later 

 years, and even in the richest soils there is a limit, notwithstand- 

 ing statements to the contrary, to the root and foliar development 

 of Para rubber plants just as there is to parts of other cultivated 

 plants. 



The closer the trees are planted, within reasonable limits, the 



