July i, 1904.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



335 



RUBBER PLANTING IN CEYLON AND THE MALAY STATES. 



As Seen by The Editor of " The India Rubber World." 



FOURTH LETTER. 



Rubber Trees and Tapping at Culloden. — Night Tapping — 

 Rubber Curing House.— Oil from ffevea Nuts. — Cost of Para Rub- 

 ber at Colombo. — Arapolakanda Estate. — Smoking Ceylon Rubber. 

 — Sunnycroft Estate. — Enemies of the Ilevra. — A Touch of Fever. 

 — The Forest Conservator. — A Paddy Field Experience. 



AT the close of my first day at Culloden, when the sun 

 had dropped low enough to make it fairly comfortable 

 in the open, at Mr. Harrison's invitation we started 

 out to see the rubber. The plantation is primarily 

 for tea, the rubber having been planted later through the tea 

 and also in some of the valleys. The land is very rocky, iron- 

 stone abounding, but there must be something in the soil that 

 suits the Hevea, for it flourished wonderfully. The only place 

 where it did not appear to do well was in very low ground, 

 where there was no drainage. 

 The swampy portions of the 

 land have, therefore, been 

 thoroughly drained; indeed, 

 where some of the seven and 

 eight year old rubber now is 

 there had once been a bog 

 where cattle were wont to get 

 mired. The rubber on this 

 soil, which was very rich, had 

 some 3 feet of drainage. Of 

 course it was to be expected 

 that the Htvea would grow in 

 such soil as this, but I must 

 confess that I was amazed to 

 see it flourishing far up on 

 rocky hillsides, and sending 

 its laterals in all directions for 

 food. The Hevea has proved 

 itself, in Ceylon at least, a 

 most voracious surface feeder, 

 and in this connection it is 

 worth while to examine the il- 

 lustration of the uprooted tree 

 held erect between two cocoa- 

 nut palms, with the laterals 

 stretched right and left, show- 

 ing a growth longer than the tree trunk itself. The photograph 

 from which my illustration was made was taken by Mr. J. B. 

 Carruthers, and is most graphic* 



The tapping of the trees begins just as soon as it is light in 

 the morning, for through the middle of the day the latex does 

 not flow freely, but starts up again about 4 in the afternoon and 

 is continued until dark. The trees are tapped when they show 

 a girth of 2 feet, without regard to their age. No ladders or 

 supports are used in tapping, as it wasn't found profitable to 

 tap higher than a coolie can reach while standing on the 

 ground. The tool is a very simple V-shaped knife with two 

 cutting edges, and a single slanting cut about 8 inches long has 

 been found to be best, a tin cup being placed under the lower 

 end of the cut and held in position by forcing its sharp edge 

 under the bark. These cuts, by the way, are about a foot apart, 

 sometimes closer, and all run in the same direction, the 

 herring bone and the V-shaped cuts being no more in evidence. 



♦The illustration appeared in our June I issue— page 299. 



VIEW FROM HILLY ROAD NEAR CULLODEN. 



The practice is also followed now of cutting a very thin shav- 

 ing from one side of the cut, every other day ; eleven times, in 

 other words, reopening instead of tapping. Before placing the 

 tin cup under the cut, it is rinsed out in cold water to keep the 

 latex from adhering to the tin, and also to keep it from too 

 quick a coagulation. While I was there a very interesting ex- 

 periment in scraping the outer bark from the trees had just 

 been finished. The results, as far as could be determined, were 

 such a stimulation to the lactiferous ducts that the flow was in- 

 creased nearly 50 per cent. The oldest trees on this plantation, 

 by the way, are 18 years, and have produced 3 pounds a year ; 

 by scraping the outer bark off they expect to get 6 pounds a 

 year from each of these. There are only a few of these older 

 trees, however, most of them being 7 or 8 years of age. All 



through the rubber orchards 

 on this estate were hundreds 

 of young Para trees that were 

 self sown ; indeed in many 

 places they had come up so 

 thickly as to be a nuisance. 

 The workmen on this estate, 

 100 in number, are all Tamil 

 coolies, as the Singalese do 

 not care to work, preferring 

 to cultivate rice, a good crop 

 of which insures them a two 

 or three years' vacation. By 

 the time we had examined a 

 few Castilloa trees that were 

 planted by way of experiment, 

 night had fallen, and we 

 wended our way back to the 

 bungalow, where, after a hot 

 bath, as is the custom of the 

 country, we sat down to din- 

 ner in pajamas, the " punkah 

 walla " stirring the heavy, 

 moist air by most vigorous 

 pulls at the "punkah" cord 

 throughout the meal. 



The rainfall up here in Kalu- 

 tara is rather more than down at the coast, being, so I was in- 

 formed, 144 inches, and the maximum temperature 94 F. 

 While I was there it was unusually dry, yet the rubber looked 

 well and there was a record of six weeks without rain, which 

 had no apparent effect upon it. The next morning we visited 

 other parts of the plantation and saw a great deal of fine rub- 

 ber. At present there is an excellent market for the seed, as 

 so many new plantations are going in. As a better prepara- 

 tion, however, against the time when the seed will be a drug 

 in the market, my host was experimenting with an oil made 

 from the seeds. With a rude native mill he turned out an oil 

 which the native women eagerly purchased to burn before 

 their gods, while the pressed cake made an excellent food for 

 cattle. During the forenoon I saw a large Ceara rubber tree 

 cut down and it seemed to have no latex in it at all. I also saw 

 a Para rubber tree, self sown, growing out of a cleft in the rock 

 where there was apparently no soil, the trunk being 10 inches 

 in diameter and apparently very thrifty. 



