84 THE RUBBER TREE BOOK 



each evening. For this reason, no matter how long the beds 

 may be, they should not be more than about 4 feet wide, with 

 passages between, through which the coolies can walk up and 

 down to water the seedlings. 



Many planters favour planting the seeds in the nurseries 

 each in separate baskets, so as to have basket plants for plant- 

 ing-out, that is, plants with all the soil round the tender root- 

 lets contained in the basket, and planted-out undisturbed and 

 uninjured in the fields. These baskets can, as a rule, be readily 

 procured from the local native populations. They are of 

 various sizes and can be made according to the requirements 

 of the planter. If the baskets are not of fair depth the tap- 

 roots of the young plants will, within three or four months, 

 have reached the bottom of the baskets, and finding the tough 

 fibres of which the baskets are composed an obstacle which 

 they are unable to penetrate, the tap-roots become twisted and 

 bent, and the young plants therefore unsuitable for planting- 

 out. It is therefore obviously necessary that whatever advan- 

 tages basket plants offer they must be promptly planted-out 

 or they will become unserviceable. In such circumstances 

 planters sometimes tear open the bottoms of the baskets and 

 place them upon soft, loose soil, into which the tap-roots pene- 

 trate. Such plants are, however, very troublesome to plant- 

 out later, as the utmost care has to be exercised to prevent 

 tap-roots being badly bent or twisted. It is therefore plainly 

 desirable that, if basket-plants are to be used, the baskets 

 should be as deep as possible. In all cases the bottoms of the 

 baskets must be torn or cut well open when the plants are being 

 put out in the fields. 



A method frequently employed in Java is to use what are 

 called poeterans instead of baskets. These poeterans, or little 

 pots, are composed of a mixture of cattle manure and clay. 

 They are well baked in the sun so as to become hard, but not 

 too hard to dissolve later on when planted-out in the open 

 fields and exposed to the moisture of the soil. Trees planted 

 in this way grow remarkably well. For example, on the well- 

 known Limburg estate in East Java, one-year-old trees which 

 had been planted in poeterans were quite equal to two-year-old 

 trees planted in other parts of the estate by the ordinary 

 method. 



