RUBBER 689 



Messrs. Matheson and Co., with the valuable co-opera- 

 tion of the managers. 



Though it grows very easily, Ceara rubber, like other 

 crops, responds to good soil and good cultivation. When 

 first planted in 1904 these points were often neglected, 

 and the trees were often put into the poorest of soils and 

 then left to take care of themselves and struggle with 

 a jungle of grass and weeds, and to this the original 

 failures were largely due. If it is to prove a commercial 

 success it is most important to give the trees a thorough 

 and careful cultivation from the start, and either to keep 

 the clearings clean weeded, or, better still, under a care- 

 fully controlled system of leguminous green dressing 

 cover crops, "so as to ensure 80 or 90 per cent, of the 

 permanent trees reaching a tappable size at the same 

 time. 



The evenness of a clearing is a most important factor 

 in rubber cultivation, because when the tapping stage is 

 reached the majority of the trees in an even clearing can 

 be tapped, making the tasks more easy to arrange for 

 the tappers, and generally facilitating the field arrange- 

 ments and reducing the cost of production. So impor- 

 tant is this factor that it is, in my opinion, better for a 

 clearing to be a year behind in growth but even, than 

 for it to make a rapid but uneven growth; and it would 

 probably prove economical to examine clearings annually 

 after they are eighteen months old, and to fork round 

 and manure all backward trees with the idea of making 

 them catch up their better-grown neighbours, and thus 

 produce an even clearing before manuring the clearing 

 as a whole. 



It has been customary in Southern India to plant the 

 trees closely at first and afterwards to thin them out. 

 This reduces the cost of weeding, and tends to produce 

 clean, straight stems and high branching. It is probably 

 better, however, to plant the trees at the beginning 15 by 

 15 ft., and at the end of the third year to take out all 

 those which have been retarded or overshaded by their 

 neighbours. 



In any case the thinning out must be done systematic- 

 ally, and the plan adopted is, at the end of the third year 



