THE NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES 237 



time this coffee is selling at 50 shillings per hundred- 

 weight, and at this price the temptation is certainly 

 very great to pick two or three crops before cutting it 

 out from the lines of rubber-trees. This is especially 

 the case when old coffee machinery exists on an estate, 

 and can be utilized for preparing the Robusta coffee for 

 the market. 



In spite of the fact that many trees on the older 

 estates are stunted in development owing to inter- 

 planting with Liberian coffee and other crops, the 

 general condition of the plantations is distinctly good. 

 There is very little fames in evidence, and small damage 

 has been done by white ants ; this is due, in great 

 measure, to the fact that the land is exceptionally clear 

 of decaying timber and roots, on account of its former 

 cultivation for coffee and tobacco. In new clearings 

 also, the general rule, however, is an absence of pests. 

 Many estates show the effect of strong prevailing winds, 

 and a considerable proportion of trees of two and three 

 years of age were so bent over at two or three feet from 

 the ground as to interfere seriously with tapping opera- 

 tions. Many managers in Sumatra without experience 

 in planting rubber quite failed to grasp the importance 

 of straight-stemmed trees on an estate. In spite of 

 the defects alluded to, the general development on 

 young plantations is fair, and the growth, especially in 

 sheltered situations, quite equal to, if not more rapid 

 than, that of Malaya. The trees suffer from nodules 

 in the bark in the same manner as in the Malay Penin- 

 sula and Ceylon. 



To calculate the value of rubber plantations in 

 Sumatra, it is necessary to divide them into five groups : 



