294 



The average crop calculated on the whole of the eighteen years 

 was 196,143 seeds. To eliminate the variation due to seasons, we 

 may take the average of each five years, and then we get : — 



Average of years 



The later figures show crops consistently larger figures than 

 the average, the change commencing as table V shows with 1907- 



It is not clear to what the increase is to be ascribed, though 

 something may have been done by means of more thorough col- 

 lecting ; and as commencing in 1904 the grass under the trees was cut 

 over more often in order that the collecting might be better, the trees 

 obtained a little more cultivation than they had, which increased, 

 until now they are clean weeded, except in Blocks 6 and 8. 



The yield of the years from 1907 forwards was at the rate of 

 281,200 seeds per annum, which at 144 seeds to the pound would be 

 nearly 2000 lbs. per annum from about 1,400 trees, or of kernels 

 about 1,200 lbs: and if these yield j2 per cent, of oil the return in 

 oil amounts to just over 500 lbs. It is not convenient to write of 

 the worth of this oil here: — a discussion on that subject with 

 more details will be given in a later issue of this Bulletin. But 

 meanwhile the Gardens records are useful in furnishing a rough 

 estimate of what might be collected of this secondary product from 

 matured rubber estates, where of course tapping would be more 

 extensive than in the gardens, but the spacing of the trees much 

 more appropriate. 



That the trees, as is quite to be expected, tend to exhaust them- 

 selves in seeding, is evident from the way in which a particularly 

 large cups is generally the sequel of a failure to seed, and is generally 

 followed by a failure in the next seeding season falling about half 

 a year later. 



