PLANTING DISTANCES 117 



than from trees planted 120 or 150 per acre, yet this will not 

 be long the case. When the more widely-planted trees have 

 arrived at the age of six or seven years they will be yielding 

 considerably more, tree for tree, than those planted at closer 

 distances. When the widely-planted trees reach the age of 

 eight to nine years the yield per acre should equal, if not sur- 

 pass, the yield per acre from closely-planted trees. 



Every year thereafter should see very large augmentations 

 of the latex yield. By the time the trees reach the age of 

 from eleven to twelve years it may be anticipated that the 

 yields per acre from the widely-planted trees will far exceed 

 the yields per acre from closely-planted trees. 



Mr R. M. Lyne, Government Director of Agriculture, Ceylon, 

 in the course of an address delivered on 4th July, 1912, made 

 the following statement: 



" We have broughf in for exhibition some rubber, the 

 produce of one month's tapping of a Hevea tree at Heneratgoda. 

 It weighs 18 Ibs. The tree goes on yielding in that proportion 

 six months or more in the year. In 3 J years it yielded 275 Ibs. 

 of rubber. What is the cause of this? I have heard it described 

 as a freak, but I do not accept that solution. If we had been 

 planting rubber for a hundred years, or if this tree stood in a 

 plantation of 100,000 among others of like age and size, we 

 might be justified in regarding it as a freak; but there are only 

 a few trees on the island that can rank as its peers, and these 

 are grouped round it. It is one of the original consignment 

 imported from Brazil. This tree has never been manured, 

 therefore manure has had nothing to do with its prolificacy. 

 It grows on rather poor soil, therefore its abundant flow of 

 latex is not due to exceptional richness of soil. We can thus 

 eliminate three influences individual peculiarity, manure, soil 

 and say that none of these has had anything to do with 

 the rich return of this Hevea tree. What remains? To what 

 other conditions is vigorous tree growth due? Light, air and 

 room are three, and this tree, standing on the outside of the 

 plantation, enjoys a liberal supply of all of these. Leaves can- 

 not perform their functions without light, and, other things 

 being equal, we may take it that the more light they receive 

 during the hours of daylight, the more work they will do, and 

 the more vigorous will the circulation of the tree become. The 



