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THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[April i, 1902. 



RUBBER PLANTING IN THE FAR EAST. 



The West Country, Kajang, Selaogor, 



Federated Malay States, January 13, igor. 



TO THE Editor of The India Rubber World: I send 

 you herewith a printed copy of a memorial which the 

 United Planters' Association of the Federated Malay 

 Slates has sent to the Right Hon. Joseph Chamber- 

 lain, in support of a memorial which has already been sent to 

 him by the Ceylon Planters' Association, and trust that it will 

 be of interest to you. e. b. skinner, 



Honorary Secretary United Planters' Association. 



To the Right Honorable Joseph Chamberlain, m. p., 



His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies, 



Downing Street, London. 

 The Humble Memorial of the United Planters' Association of the Fed. 

 erated Malay States. Respectfully Showeth : 

 I. That your memorialists desire to bring under consideration the in. 

 tention of the government of India to plant 10,000 acres in the Mergu; 

 division of Burma with the Para rubber tree (HeUia Brasiliensis). 



i. That, whilst it Is stated by the revenue secretary to the government 

 of Burma that this proposed scheme on the part of the government o- 

 India is in the nature of an " experimental measure," your memorialist^ 

 desire to point out that the acreage referred to is at least equal to, if no 

 in excess of, the whole area planted by private enterprise in the Feder. 

 ated Malay States, and the Straits Settlements. 



3. That for the last five years the cultivation of Para rubber has been 

 progressing steadily in this country, and promises in the near future to 

 be the main agricultural staple. Owing to the continued depression 0{ 

 the coffee market, the Liberian coffee estates of this peninsula have been 

 almost without exception planted up with Para rubber. In the same way 

 that cinchona and tea were planted, with such successful results to that 

 colony, on the coffee estates In Ceylon ; at the same time, a consid- 

 erable area of virgin forest has also been brought under cultivation with 

 this product in the Federated Malay States. 



4. That in the botanical gardens of Ceylon and the Malay peninsula. 

 Para rubber trees, of a sufficiently mature age, exist in sufficient numbers 

 to render it apparently unnecessary for the Institution of an experimental 

 garden of anything like the dimensions as that which forms the subject 

 of this memorial. 



5. That your memoralists directly contribute to the revenue of the 

 Federated Malay States, by paying an ad valorem export duty of 2j^ per 

 cent, on all agricultural products, in addition to payment of rents and 

 premiums for land ; that further, in certain cases, special arrangements 

 have been made with the government whereby it is Incumbent upon 

 land owners to plant up the whole of their concessions with rubber 

 within a period of ten years. 



6. That your memorialists submit that the production of so large an 

 amount of Para rubber by the government of India must result In serious 

 competition with private growers, who have, under already existing cir- 

 cumstances, to contend against an enormous supply from the indigenous 

 rubbers of other countries. 



7. Wherefore your memorialists pray that his Majesty's government 

 may take any necessary action in the matter, and your memorialists will, 

 in duty bound, ever pray. On hehalf of the memorialists, 



E. B. SKINNER, K. V. CAREY, 



Honorary Secretary. Chairman. 



The memorial to Mr. Secretary Chamberlain, by the Plant- 

 ers' Association of Ceylon, referred to in the above letter of 

 Mr. Skinner, is of the same nature as that from the Malay 

 States, though going more fully into the details of the progress 

 already made in rubber planting by private interests. At a re- 

 cent meeting of the Ceylon association was read a letter from 

 the governor of that colony, stating that Mr. Chamberlain did 



not think that he would be justified in objecting, in the in- 

 terests of Ceylon, to any encouragement which the govern- 

 ment of India might think it wise to give to the develop- 

 ment of the rubber industry in liurma. He had, however, sub- 

 mitted the memorial to the secretary of state for India, and 

 certain correspondence had ensued, after considering which 

 there did not appear, to the governor of Ceylon, any sufficient 

 ground for making any representation to the Indian govern- 

 ment on the subject. 



THE PROPOSED PLANTATION IN BURMA. 

 In regard to the proposed government plantation in Burma, 

 to which objection has been made by the Ceylon and Malay 

 States planters. The India Rubber World has been sup- 

 plied with some details by Major J. A. Wyllie, I. s. C, F. R. G. S., 

 secretary of the cantonment committee, at Rangoon, who has 

 been designated by the government to have charge of the 

 work. The extent of land to be taken up in the first instance 

 is, roughly, 10,000 acres, and planting is to run over ten years, 

 at a total cost of 2,10.000 rupees [=^68,040], not to exceed 25,- 

 000 rupees in any year. Ftcus elastica undoubtedly will be 

 planted to some extent, but the main idea is the creation of 

 reserves of Hevea Brasiliensis, the climatic conditions of the 

 district having been shown to favor this tree. Other species, 

 indigenous as well as exotic, will not, however, be neglected, 

 and attention will be given to the preservation of any wild 

 rubbers. 



The Pard rubber tree has had twenty or more years' trial in 

 Burma, in the Tenasserim coast tracts — notably at Mergui 

 (latitude 12° N.), where not only the original trees supplied from 

 Ceylon, but their offspring, have long since attained maturity 

 and are fruiting freely. This plantation covers about 100 

 acres. Seed from it has been largely exported of late years to 

 the Straits Settlements, to private planters, and it will form the 

 nucleus of the larger plantation now under contemplation in 

 South Tenasserim. 



The municipal duties of Major Wyllie comprise (among 

 other things) the management of public gardens and the dis- 

 posal of public refuse in Rangoon. In these gardens for sev- 

 eral years past Major Wyllie has been carrying out experi- 

 ments in rubber growing, one result of which, at the close of 

 1898, was a stock of Pard and Ceard rubber seedlings out of 

 proportion to the space available in the gardens. At the same 

 time, objection had been made to the disposal of sewage in a 

 region devoted to market gardening, whereupon Major Wyllie 

 secured 32 acres of ground convenient to Rangoon, which was 

 laid out as a sewage farm, and to which the rubber seedlings 

 were transplanted. "The young //«r/,?(Zi seem capable of ab- 

 sorbing any amount of manure, and the farm itself is of great 

 use in the opportunities it gives of observing the behavior and 

 requirements of the Para rubber tree during the period of ac- 

 climatization." 



" On the whole," writes Major Wyllie, after detailing the ex- 

 perimental work done on his rubber sewage farm, "the culture 

 of rubber in Burma may be looked upon, if not as the coming 

 industry, at least as one of the industries bound to come. It 

 may be objected that, if such minute attention to detail is re- 

 quired for the establishment of a rubber forest, rubber cannot 

 be the wonderfully profitable crop it has been asserted to be. 

 But this is a mistake. The more carefully minor points are 

 observed and results noted in the first beginnings of the under- 



