29 



RUBBER SEED SELECTION. 



By a. H. Malet, 

 (Manager, Trong Estate, Perak, F.M.8.) 



/"^NE of, if not the most important of the problems that faces the 

 ^^^ rubber industry at the present moment is that of seed selection. 

 It is a gi-ave I'eflection on those who are technically responsible for 

 the safe-guarding of millions of British capital that so far not the 

 slightest effort has yet been made to guard the industry from the 

 inevitable results of neglecting to provide for a supply of seeds from 

 wholesome vigorous stock. 



It is, moreover, as far as the writer is aware, the only tropical 

 agricultural industry which is liable to this reproach. No sane 

 planter thinks of buying any but tested seed when opening up an 

 estate in tea, sugar, tobacco or cinchona, but hitherto almost any seed 

 has been considered good enough for rubber. Individual efforts are 

 made to secure seed fx'om old trees, and certain well-known estates 

 have in the past made considei^able suras from advertising " seeds 

 from well-known old ti^es," etc., but the claims of these estates to 

 have more virtue in their seeds as prolific milkers and disease 

 x'esisters than seed from other less known properties rest on 

 a very shadowy foundation. 



The question is not by any means an easy one to dispose of — 

 further, it is almost an impossible one for the pi'actical planter to 

 undertake to solve. There are two main points at issue : they are 

 the propagation of good caoutchouc-producing trees and the 

 re-vitalizing of tlie trees themselves ; of the two, the latter is certainly' 

 the more important. 



The question then naturally ain-ses, what is the relation between 

 the vitality or disease-resisting power of a tree and latex production ? 

 Does it always follow that a strong healthy tree is a good milker 

 and vice versa ? As far as the latex pixjduction of individual trees 

 is concerned the whole industry, at present, is on an equal footing — 

 but this cannot be said of the disease-resisting qualities of all planted 

 areas and in the humble opinion of the writer what is mostly to be 

 feared is inter-breeding and consequent degeneration. 



The flowers of the Hevea being uni-sexual, inter- bi'eeding is 

 impossible to stop, and thus one of the most important laws of 

 Nature — namely, that vigorous gi-owth and healthy life can only be 

 secured when ci'oss-fertilization takes place, is counteracted by our 

 system of cultivation. In the jungles of the Amazon the law of 

 natural selection is allowed full play and only the fittest survive, but 



