254 



l888., Collins {Report on Caoutchouc of Commeice, London, 1872, p. 

 36) had described herring-bone tapping as done "in Para, Guiana," 

 etc., by making a vertical cut from high up the tree to the base and 

 numerous short side cuts which were not reopened at all (or at least 

 Collins makes no mention of reopening them). The Dj-^aks, however, 

 borrowed no ideas from such a source. They tapped the trees rather 

 in the way by which they sometimes draw birdlime or the Samangs 

 draw the juice of the Ipoh tree — Antiaris toxicaria, Lesch. (vide 

 Keiv Bulletin, * 1891, p. 260 and also L. Wray in Ferguson's All 

 about Rubber, 1899, p. ccxxxviii). They cut — perhaps one should 

 say hacked^rough herring-bones, but were not exactly successful, 

 it being reported " that scarcely any juice exuded from them." 

 {Agricultural Bulletin of the Straits and F.M.S., ii., 1903, p. 3). 



Trimen's 1882 tapping was merely to see if he could get rubber, 

 and in the years immediately following he did not repeat the experi- 

 ment. But in 1888 he restarted experimental tapping by a 

 modification of the Brazilian method of making numerous small 

 incisions. It is recorded that he tapped but one tree; and that he 

 continued his demonstrations upon it in the years 1890, 1892, and 

 1894, i.e., in alternate years. These tappings were done timidly for 

 fear of injuring the tree, thus he made cuts in the tree on seventeen 

 days only in the year 1888, seven being near the commencement of 

 the year, in the months of January and February, six at the middle, in 

 in July and August, and four at its close in December. The next 

 tappings were like the first. 



In 1889 at Mergui similar rather timid tappings were tried (Kew 

 Bulletin, 1898, p. 266). 



In 1888 Mr. H. N. Ridley became Director of Gardens, Straits 

 Settlements, and visited the Ceylon establishments on his way to the 

 East {Agricultural Bulletin of the Straits and F.M.S., ix., 1910, p. 202). 



When he took over charge in Singapore, there existed in the 

 Economic Garden at least nine trees of the row transferred in 1879, 

 twenty-one trees which had been planted in 1884 and were seedlings 

 from the foregoing, or from Kwala Kangsar thirty trees which had 

 been planted out in 1886, and probably in part came from the Ceylon 

 seed imported in 1885 in a Wardian case, and 1,138 seedlings a year 

 old, and again doubtless from the Gardens' own seed. He at once 

 set to work to care for these, and raised another 8000 plants from a 

 consignment of Ceylon seed. 



He tapped to ascertain yield in 1889, (Agricultural Bulletin of the 

 Straits and F.M.S., ix., 1910, p. 202) one year after his arrival, and 

 he reported that the trees " thrive in the damper spots, and those old 

 enough to cut produce a considerable quantity of rubber" (Annual 

 Report, Botanic Gardens, Singapore, for 1890, p. 4). Rubber produced 

 from them was exhibited at the Agricultural Show held in 1890 (Agri- 



* Sir Hugh Low had interested himself in the Ipoh tree in 1881, vide Km' Bulletin, 

 1891, p. 26. 



