224 THE RUBBER TREE BOOK 



Where the lay of the land is flat, disc-ploughs or cultivators 

 are employed on several estates. These, as ordinarily employed, 

 are of no use for getting rid of lalang, but once lalang has been 

 extirpated they are useful in keeping down light weeds, if it is 

 desired to do so, at a cost of about fifty dollar cents per acre. 

 Furthermore, as explained elsewhere in this book, the advantage 

 of having the surface of the soil broken up is very great, as it 

 prevents an immense loss of moisture which would otherwise 

 evaporate, and it has thus for all practical purposes the effect 

 of materially conserving the rainfall and so assisting the more 

 rapid growth of the trees and adding to their power of resistance 

 to droughts. Such methods, however, are but a poor substitute 

 for chankolling. The ploughs usually employed only turn over 



2 or 3 inches of surface soil, and going over the soil with 

 them is not cultivation. A well-known planter who had been 

 trying such ploughs at the request of his board, was asked by 

 another planter who was on a visit to the estate what he thought 

 of them. <f See here/' said the planter, pushing his walking- 

 stick into the ground the ploughs had just been over, " the top 



3 inches of soil are loose, but the ground is caked hard below 

 and my walking-stick won't go down." The object-lesson was 

 better than words. Still, such ploughs at least break up the 

 surface of the soil, and that is better than nothing, as the rain- 

 fall then penetrates the soil and does not for the greater part 

 promptly run off into the drains. Of course, ploughs can only 

 be used on level ground free from stumps or rocks. 



In actual practice the costs of weeding by means of culti- 

 vators work out as follows : 



Wages : Two men, with four bullocks at 40 cents per 



coolie per day, cultivate five acres daily . $0.16 per acre 



Food for four bullocks at $10 per month, each bullock 



working, say, twenty-five days per month . 0.32 



Depreciation on bullocks and cultivators . . o.io ,, 



$0.58 



On some estates where the benefit of cultivation was recog- 

 nized, but inadequate financial resources exercised a restraining 

 influence, a compromise was resorted to. Circles round the 

 young trees were well dug over with marked improvement in 



