W. MCRAE 263 



fruits from a rubber tree is not an easy matter, as they are scattered over young 

 twigs towards the ends of the branches. So far as my observations go, the 

 fruits seem to be more plentiful on the intermediate rather than on the higher 

 branches ; but of course I have not seen old rubber (i.e., more than 15 years 

 old), and do not know whether this holds good generally. At any rate it is 

 substantially true for rubber in South India at the present time. Removal 

 of the fruits is not an impossible task, though to do it thoroughly will be 

 expensive. 



There is another possibility, i.e., the destruction of the flowers in order 

 to prevent the formation of fruit. This might be done by mechanically 

 removing the flowers, or by spraying them with a chemical that would kill 

 them. The stalk of the inflorescence is easily cut until it begins to become 

 strengthened in order to bear the weight of the developing fruit. The inflor- 

 escences, however, borne as they are on the numerous twigs on the outer 

 ends of the branches, are not easily reached even with a knife on the end of a 

 long pole such as a shepherd uses to get down leaves of trees for his flocks. 

 The manipulation of such a weapon at best is clumsy, and it has been found 

 that, unless the knife has a keener edge than a coolie can be expected to keep, 

 the stalks bend before it instead of being cut by it. Again, most of the inflor- 

 escences spring from the axils of leaves that are still on the twig, and they 

 cannot be removed without removing the leaves as well, thus causing a con- 

 siderable amount of defoliation ; but this we particularly wish to avoid seeing 

 that the new season's tapping is about to begin. Besides every inflorescence 

 does not produce fruit, so that removing all of them entails a great deal of 

 unnecessary labour. In several estates in April and May twigs were examined 

 on the inflorescences of which all the flowers had faded, and the presence or 

 absence of young fruits was noted. They were taken from the lower and 

 middle branches of the trees, as these were more easily accessible. On 63 twigs 

 there were 651 inflorescences, of which 230 had one or more fruits, i.e., only 

 35 per cent, of the inflorescences bore fruit. On a considerable number of 

 the twigs there were infloresconce-scars showing that some inflorescences had 

 fallen off, but they were not taken into account as they do not afl'ect our pur- 

 pose. Thus the difficuity of cutting the inflorescence because its stalk bends 

 so readily before the knife, the unavoidable removal of leaves in doing it, and 

 the low percentage of inflorescences that bear fruit, render the removal of 

 flowers by mechanical means impracticable. 



Spraying the inflorescence with a chemical, such as a solution of copper 

 sulphate that would kill them, is not under present conditions practicable. 



