Indian Forest Administration. 239 



and in accessible places easily worked, will be of very great value 

 hereafter, when the supply of that timber from beyond the frontier 

 will have diminished, and when the forests and plantations of British 

 Burmah will be expected to yield the greater part of the annual out- 

 turn which is now brought both from the British forests and from 

 the forests in foreign territory. 



A few experimental teak plantations have been started in Assam, 

 but it is not intended to extend them, Assam being entirely out- 

 side the area of the natural distribution of the tree. The most 

 important and profitable plant in Assam is the FIgus elastica, 

 or East Indian rubber plant. The Eeport says that "this tree 

 is principally cultivated at Kulsi and at Charduar in the Tezpur 

 district. The Kulsi plantation covered thirty-five acres at the close 

 of the year, and preparations had been made to increase it, but 

 there was no intention to extend it beyond 100 acres, as the climate 

 is considered too dry for the profitable cultivation of Ficus elastica. 

 In the Charduar caoutchouc plantation 180 acres were stocked at the 

 close of the year, and this plantation it is intended to extend on a 

 large scale. The system followed by Mr. Mann was to clear lines 

 through the forests twenty feet wide and 100 feet apart, and on these 

 lines to plant the young trees at distances of fifty feet. It was, how- 

 ever, found that the shade and drip from the trees on either side of the 

 line injured the young caoutchouc trees, and accordingly the width 

 of the lines was increased to forty feet. In future it is intended to 

 plant the trees at distances of twenty-five feet, and this will doubtless 

 be a great improvement. Even at that distance each tree occupies an 

 area of 2,500 feet, which allows only seventeen trees per acre. In the 

 Kulsi plantation the lines are fifty feet apart and twenty feet wide, 

 and the trees are planted out at distances of twenty-five feet. The 

 plants are raised from cuttings and from seeds in nurseries, and a 

 quantity of seedlings was also brought in from the hills north of 

 the Charduar plantation. The facts recorded by Mr. Mann leave no 

 doubt that the Ficus elastica grows readily in the ground from seed 

 self-sown or planted ; experiments have, at the same time, however, 

 been made to plant seedlings in strongly-made cane baskets, and to 

 place them in the forks of trees. Data will thus be gained to deter- 

 mine whether there is any difference in the rate of growth of trees 

 grown in the ground and on the branches of other trees." 



These experiments and facts are most interesting and of the 

 greatest value to those interested in the cultivation of the Ficus 

 elastica as a rubber-producing tree, for it is well known that in the 

 Indian forests the plants luxuriate among the branches of other trees, 

 clasping and sometimes entirely enveloping the trunks of the trees 

 upon which they have taken possession. It is also well known that 



