64 RUBBER PLANTING IN CEYLON 



the planting interests in Ceylon, and whose opinions on rubber are 

 most sound. In the course of conversation, he acknowledged that 

 he and his co workers were continually on the outlook for the 

 appearance of disease in the rubber. He said that wher- 

 ever large areas of anything were cultivated, nature came forward 

 with some disease or pest. He believed, however, that intelligence and 

 vigilance would keep such visitations at least under control. I asked 

 him specifically about his idea of distances in planting rubber, and his 

 conclusions were almost identical with my own, that it was well to 

 plant closely at first, that weeds and grass might be kept down, and 

 perhaps cut out the weaklings later. Of course, in planting through 

 tea no such close setting can be indulged in. 



My visit to Ceylon was drawing rapidly to a close, as I was booked 

 to sail on the Bengal on the 2Oth. Any further excursions that I took 

 into the country were, therefore, of minor importance, and of adven- 

 tures I had none except that little affair with the water buffalo. It 

 came about through my desire to see a paddy field at close range. I 

 was some little way out of town, and stepping down off the roadway 

 walked out on the narrow bank of clayey mud that separated one rice 

 plot from another. There were hundreds of these plots and miles of 

 narrow earthworks, and I had gotten some distance out, when a huge 

 water buffalo, wallowing in the mud, made up his mind that I was an 

 intruder, and started for me. As he weighed about a ton, and knew 

 the country anyhow, I didn't stop to argue, but raced back for the road. 

 I am considered a pretty fair runner, but I verily believe that the beast 

 would have caught me if it hadn't been for a native who ran out with a 

 switch and headed him off. The absurd part of it was that my rescuer 

 was a mite of a boy, his only clothing being a red string round his waist, 

 but he certainly knew the proper profanity to apply to water buffaloes. 



By the way, speaking of paddy fields, it seems a shame that the 

 very best land of Ceylon should be given up to the culture of rice. If 

 those same fields were drained and planted to Para rubber, there is no 

 doubt but that they would show an infinitely bigger profit, even if those 

 who turned them into rubber orchards paid, as an annual rental, the 

 amount of rice that they are supposed to produce. 



