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used for marking timber in Germany, suggt sting that it should be 

 tried for tapping rubber trees. His suggestion however did not 

 bear fruit and was forgotten as planters had no need of tapping 

 knives. History repeated itself and the same idea came forward 

 again when Wray to help on his experiment at Taiping made what 

 was but a small modification of the same knife. Later, it seems quite 

 independently, Mr. F. A. Stephens, then manager of the Jebong Estate 

 in Perak, reproduced the device. Though we call it the Jebong knife 

 now, the principle and its application to rubber are much older than 

 rubber on the Jebong Estate. Its simplicity is the chief cause why it 

 has found favour in the Malay Peninsula: whereas ingenious patents 

 have generally been the produce of Ceylon. 



In 1906, experimenting was renewed in the Botanic Gardens, 

 at Singapore, the trees which had served for experiments 4 and 5 

 in 1904 being used, while those which had made the other experi- 

 ments were tapped in rotation as in 1905. To all groups additional 

 trees were added where death had made gaps. These additional 

 trees were a very mixed lot : some had been tapped before 

 1904; some had been tapped by Mr. Ridley in 1905 ; some had 

 been tapped by Mr. Burgess in 1905 ; some had been part of experi- 

 ment U ; and some were virgin. Added to the experiments now 

 was an experiment 7 a comparison of herring-bone tapping with 

 spiral tapping and at the same time a trial of the pricker. Spiral 

 tapping was also done on other trees in two forms, one a genuine 

 spiral or "full spiral," the other intermediate between spiral 

 and long oblique tapping or " half spiral." These two forms of 

 tapping, both of which in the Gardens' records and in Ceylon were 

 alike called " spiral," are illustrated in plate 5 herewith published. 

 The reader with that before him will for himself realise how very 

 much more the descending sap current is interfered with in the one 

 than in the other. Pree No. 2 which is that in ihe right hand figure 

 had seven five and a half feet long cuts made in it : these are shown 

 and also there may be seen herring bone cuts of 1905 and 1906 

 made when the tree was in experiment U or in experiment 6. The 

 same tree was figured in an earlier stage in the piate published with 

 the July 1908 number of the Agricultural Bulletin of the Straits and 

 F. M. S. The tree again makes plate 4 of this issue, as it was at its 

 death in 1914, whicn may be compared with the tree figured in the 

 Tropical Agriculturist, xxv., 1^06, opposite p. 724: and the plate of 

 the full spiral may be compared with that opposite p. 644. 



In 1907, Mr. Ridley took leave on April 22nd, Mr.__ Fox replacing 

 him, and Mr. Derry proceeding to Penang. Mr. Fox thus took charge 

 of the rubber work, being aided from August to November inclusive, by 

 Mr. C. Boden Kloss who returned to the Gardens for this short time. 

 Mr. Fox maintained the tapping: and the records which he kept are 

 a monument to his diligence. One new experiment was instituted 

 by Mr. Boden Kloss, a comparison of single and twin basal 

 cuts. This experiment was described in the Singapore Free Press of 



