NOTES ON INDIAN FORESTRY IN 1906. 229 
waste land free of assessment for five years for the purpose of 
cultivating Zephrosta purpurea and other shrubs suitable for leaf- 
manure met with no response. 
The Para Rubber Plantation at Mergui, in the Tenasserim 
division of Burma, in the south-eastern part of the province 
running down to the Malay Peninsula, “has been recently 
extended by 819 acres, at a cost of £764.” Begun in 1900, the 
portions first planted began to reach tapping-size in 1905, when 
793 lbs. of dry rubber were sent to London, and sold for 4s. 84d. 
a pound. Mergui is, however, a little too far north of the 
equator to provide the special climatic conditions for the proper 
thriving of the Hevea brasiliensis, which belongs purely to the 
equatorial regions of Para in the Amazon delta; and, conse- 
quently, it is there even more likely to be attacked by noxious 
insects and fungous diseases than will probably be the case in 
localities nearer the equatorial line, such as Ceylon, the Malay 
States, Sumatra, Java and Borneo, or the equatorial districts on 
the west and east coasts of Africa. But throughout the hills 
and plains to the south and east of the Amazon delta, the 
region to which the Hevea is indigenous, this Para rubber tree 
occurs only sporadically scattered throughout a multitude of 
other trees in the dense forests,—whereas, for the sake of 
economy and labour-saving in planting, weeding and cleaning, 
tapping, and supervision and management generally, rubber- 
plantations in Ceylon, the Malay States and elsewhere are being 
formed pure, or else the trees are grown as standards about 15 
to 20 feet apart over ground-crops consisting of tea-bushes, 
lemon-grass, cacao, etc.; and consequently there is the great 
danger of somewhat the same results being produced (guod dei 
avertant) as have occurred with us in regard to larch plantations, 
namely, the fostering of fungous disease of little danger while 
the host-plant grows only sporadically among many other trees, 
but almost certain to develop into a dangerous epidemic when 
pure plantations are formed extensively. 
This is, unfortunately, only too real a danger. Para rubber 
plantations in Ceylon and the Malay States have already shown 
themselves liable to attacks by rats, insects, and fungous 
diseases. The two chief diseases of the latter sort are caused 
by species of Vectria attacking stem and branches, and species 
of Homes attacking the butt and roots. Though no very serious 
results have yet been recorded, there can be no doubt that these 
