January i, 1906.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER ^^^ORLD 



107 



RUBBER TAPPING ON KEPITIGALLA ESTATE. 



By Ivor Etherington (Colombo). 



IT is to be regretted that the Editor of The India Rub- 

 ber World, when in Ceylon a year or two ago. was not 

 able to include the important Kepitigalla estate, in the 

 Matale district, among the rubber plantations he visited. 

 But as a typical example of a well worked plantation of cacao 

 and Hevea Brasiliensis, a brief account of it may now prove ac- 

 ceptable to the readers of this Journal. 



For a country with such a well developed system of railways 

 and line roads, Kepitigalla must be accounted as very much 

 out of the way. It is 18 miles as the crow flies from the near- 

 est railway, but the steep hills and deep valleys can only be 

 crossed by miles of zigzagging bridle paths, and short cuts 

 through the jungle of virgin forest. On theother side the out- 

 let is also a long winding track across streams and torrents and 

 through dense jungle and newly opened rubber clearings, and 

 by a precipitous pass in the surrounding hills to the Sinhalese 

 village of VV6-uda on the road, 13 miles to Kurunegala, the 

 nearest railway on that side. 



When Mr. Francis J. HoUoway, the estate manager, invited 

 the writer to face the journey and visit the estate and his new 

 rubber factory, no second invitation 

 was needed. A Sinhalese bullock hack- 

 ery is not the most comfortable kind of 

 traveling cart that can be thought of, 

 and 12 miles of it up and down hill 

 with the temperature almost running 

 into three figures in the shade makes 

 one both sore and dry. For the first 

 there is no remedy until the journey's 

 end ; to remedy the latter complaint 

 one has only to pull up frequently at 

 the native huts by the roadside and 

 mention the magic word "kurumba'' 

 to the more or less scantily attired son 

 of Adam busily employed cleaning his 

 teeth for hours together, or examining 

 his son's, wife's, or neighbor's head for 

 the same reason that monkeys do. He arises, walks nimbly 

 up the 30 feet stem of the nearest cocoanut palm and returns 

 with a mighty green nut; three strokes and a whittle with his 

 knife and he offers you one of nature's most cooling and re- 

 freshing drinks. We-uda is at last reached and there after 

 changing one's wringing wet underclothes, the horse, sent up by 

 Mr. Holloway, is mounted and the last stage of the journey 

 commenced. 



The sky, shortly before so blue and cloudless, is now covered 

 with dense black clouds presaging a big storm. Down come 

 the heavy drops, accompanied by a terrific thunderclap, drench- 

 ing one to the skin in a few moments. The path leading up the 

 pass is steep enough, but on the descent side it is precipitous 

 and rocky, washed by torrents swollen by the heavy rains, and 

 where even a goat would have to hold on by the skin of its 

 teeth the horse finds it no easy work, and one has to grin and 

 enjoy the feel of soaked clothes and hope for something 

 better at the end. The path runs along the side of a fine 

 gorge, the mountains towering up on each side and every 

 two or three minutes lit up by the vivid lightning playing 

 over the rocks while the thunder echoes and reechoes round 

 the hills rolling round like almost continuous artillery fire. 



TRANSPORT ELEf HANTS ARRIVING AT THE ESTATE 



FACTORY. 



\ Photograph by Mr. Etherington. 1 



Soon the flat basin of the Deduru-oya river lies far below, 

 chequered with bright green patches of native rice fields, 

 small patches of cultivated gardens, and blocks of dense 

 jungle. Facing one is a long range of hills with ragged 

 rocky points, forming the watershed of the river; along 

 this hillside runs what looks in the distance like a fine young 

 forest, but what I know to be the cacao and rubber planta- 

 tions I am aiming at. The river ford being crossed, another 

 hour's ride brings me to Mr. Holloway's bungalow, perched 

 on a leveled abutment on the hillside. Dry clothes and dinner 

 are very welcome, and with the help of lounge chairs my good 

 host and myself discussed rubber topics far into the night. 

 Work on a rubber plantation starts early, so we were up betimes 

 next morning to see the start of the tapping operations. 

 KEPITIGALLA ESTATE. 

 There are now about 1400 acres in rubber on Kepitigalla, of 

 which 830 acres form the old estate and 570 are new clearings. 

 This all lies along steep hillsides and faces due west. In this 

 there is a peculiar advantage. The whole place being in ihe 

 shade of the hill until a comparatively late hour of the morn- 

 ing, tapping can be carried on until 10 

 or 10.30 A. M. Kepitigalla was first and 

 foremost a cacao estate, the rubber 

 being planted with the primary object 

 of giving shade to the cacao, with the 

 thought that if rubber should prove a 

 paying thing the trees would be there 

 to produce it. The oldest trees were 

 planted along the roads and ravines, 

 and gradually throughout the cacao, so 

 that now from certain elevated points 

 one can look over a fine stretch of 

 Hevea foliage, the rubber trees tower- 

 well over the cacao. The rubber is 

 planted through alternate lines of cacao 

 24 X 12 feet, and along the roads, ra- 

 vines, etc., 12 X 12 feet. [This would 

 give 155 and 330 rubber trees per acre, respectively. — The 

 Editor.] 



The land has an elevation of from 600 to 2000 feet ; the soil 

 is of a generally rocky and in parts very rocky description, but 

 the soil is particularly good, and goes down deep so that the 

 rubber trees thrive well. In places they seem to be growing 

 out of sheer rock and where the enormous taproot of the tree 

 finds scope to grow is a puzzle. On one road which had to be 

 widened the soil was dug away from the bank to a height of 5 

 feet, exposing to this length the great tap and thick surface 

 roots of two Heveas. which now stand right out from the cor- 

 ner of the bank ; but the trees apparently have not been in the 

 least affected by this treatment. 



In fact, Hevea Brasiliensis in Ceylon seems to be impossible 

 to kill. Killing a tree by overtapping has not yet been report- 

 ed in the island ; the more latex you extract the better the tree 

 seems to flourish ; trees uprooted and blown down by gales still 

 thrive, yield rubber, and send up numerous strong shoots which 

 in a lew years develop into trunks big enough to tap. Diseased 

 cacao pods are collected and burned in heaps on the roads 

 through Kepitigalla and several trees have been badly burned 

 by these fires. In some of these the wood has been burnt out 



