70 RUBBER PLANTING IN CEYLON 



In spite of the midday scorching sun, in which all of my spare 

 clothing was spread to kill the mildew, I took a rickshaw and rode 

 out over Orchard Road to the botanic gardens. I was most hospitably 

 received by Director Henry N. Ridley, F. L. s v and shown all of the 

 various rubber and gutta trees and vines that he has so industriously 

 collected. The Hevca was naturally my first concern, and I found Mr. 

 Ridley most willing to talk about it, as he has long advocated its very 

 general planting, and certainly the soil is excellent and the trees respond 

 to cultivation wonderfully. From one hundred cultivated trees on an 

 estate in Perak, Mr. Ridley has taken nine hundred pounds of Para 

 rubber in one season's tapping, and from nine to twelve pounds have been 

 taken from a number of trees in the peninsula, but planters do not always 



SHOOTS FROM A FALLEN HEVEA TRUNK. 



[With view of Director H. N. Ridley.] 



get such returns. He has also taken three pounds from a single isolated 

 three-year old tree. The growth here is phenomenal, a tree eighteen 

 months old sometimes standing thirty feet high, while three-year-olds 

 often attain a height of sixty feet. I found in these gardens the Hevea 

 growing in a variety of soils, and all apparently thrifty. For example, 

 high up on a gravelly hillside, were a half hundred trees that were eight or 

 ten years old, and sixteen to eighteen inches in diameter. These were 

 planted in partial- shade, but had outdistanced all surrounding growths. 

 The other extreme from this was a large planting where there were 

 but six inches of soil above water, the soil being often submerged but 

 draining off very quickly. Here the trees grew well, but were apt to 



