317 





in strength. The variety is not recommended for commercial 

 purposes. Paretaniicha.—X tall, erect variety 10 ft. high with 

 a thick butt, bearing a good proportion of good, strong, coarse, 

 free fibre. Harakeke Fame. — This is a strong-growing variety, 

 most of the butts red, the leaf hard and somewhat difficult to 

 strip and treat generally. It yields a fair percentage of fibre, 

 but faulty in colour, harsh to the touch, and poor in strength. 



The following table shows the quantity of green leaf required 

 by each variety to produce one ton of fibre 



Ki 



Awanga 



Ngutunui 



Putaiore ... 



Harakeke Parae 



Wharariki 



Nguturua 



Uncultivated 



Katiraukawa 



Oue 



Huhiroa ... 



Paretaniwha 



* # * 



• - - 



* • i 



* * * 



* * • 



I t I 



* ■ ■ 



• * • 



* • 



* * 



• • « 



■ * 



• • l 



• ■ 



• * 



• ■ 



• * * 



■ t 



, 11U1C 



Tons. 



cut. 



qr. 



lb. 



10 



11 



* 



1 



8 



8 



7 



3 



17 



8 



•2 



1 



2; 



8 



11 







11 



8 



4 



2 



23 



8 



15 



2 



20 



8 



4 







11 



9 



9 



3 



9 



10 



"7 



1 



17 



8 



12 



1 



6 



8 



19 







22 



In several cases the leaves were badly injured by fungi and 

 caterpillars and the yield of fibre was reduced thereby. 



In the Journal of the New Zealand Department of Agriculture, 

 iii., July 15th, 1911, pp. 60-61, an account is given of a new 

 variety raised by Mr. A. W. Green, of the Euakara Experi- 

 mental Farm, by crossing the varieties Awanga and Putaiore, 

 which is said to possess great disease resisting properties and 

 at the same time to yield a high percentage of medium quality 

 fibre. 



In 1872 descriptions of a large number of varieties were given 

 in a pamphlet by Sir James Hector, entitled " Phormium tenax 

 as a Fibrous Plant," pp. 1-134, prepared for the Colonial 

 Museum and Survey Department : Second edition, pp. 1-95 

 (1889). Some of the varieties mentioned above are included in 

 the older work, but several of them are not there recorded. 



Variation in Hevea brasiliensis,— A paper of considerable 



importance and interest to those engaged in the Para rubber 

 industry has been published in the " Annals of Botany, ri Vol. 

 XXXIIL, No. CXXXL, July 1919, p. 313, by Mr/ Stafford 

 Whitby, M.Sc, A.B.C.S., of McGill University, Montreal, 



Canada. 



The paper embodies the results of the observations made by 

 the author in the Federated Malay States as to the extent to 

 which variation occurs in the amount of rubber yielded by 

 individual trees of Hevea brasiUensii of the same age and grow- 

 ing under the same conditions. He also investigated the possible 

 correlation between the yield of rubber and the girth of the 

 trunk. Some 1000 trees, seven years old, in a normal planta- 

 tion covering about 13 acres, were carefully studied, the trees 

 being in their third year of tapping. As the Eastern plantations 

 have been made with trees raised from non-selected seed, the 

 results of the investigation are of particular interest. Great 

 variations were found in the rubber content of the latex (the 



