76 THE RUBBER TREE BOOK 



Land formerly planted in sugar is to be found in the Straits 

 Settlements. It is always flat land. Here, also, drains have 

 been dug and roads made throughout the estates. In such 

 areas like those mentioned above there is very little Fomes 

 indeed to trouble the planter. 



The land to be avoided, above all, is usually found in long- 

 settled districts, where the security of good government has 

 tempted a large population to settle there and to engage in 

 agricultural pursuits. Such land is to be found in Malacca, 

 in the extreme south of Johore, and in the island of Singapore. 

 There fields have been heavily cropped for more than a hundred 

 years with tapioca, gambier and pineapples. Three cultiva- 

 tions more exhausting to the soil it would be scarcely possible 

 to find. 



The Chinese agriculturist takes everything possible out of 

 the soil but never thinks of restoring anything. In conse- 

 quence, rubber planted upon such areas is always extremely 

 backward for its age. The poorest rubber for its age which the 

 writer has ever seen was planted on such estates in the south 

 of Johore, and in the island of Singapore. There Hevea trees 

 three and a half years of age looked poor growth for eighteen 

 months. 



The only land at all comparable with these for poor growth 

 is to be found in the old, abandoned coffee-estates in Java. 

 There also the land is often impoverished, apparently to the 

 last degree; but the natural fertility of the soil of Java is so 

 great that it usually can be worked up again in the course of 

 two or three years by repeated chankollings till it resumes much 

 of its former fertility. 





