282 THE RUBBER INDUSTRY 



Dutch planters are apt to prune the rubber heavily to 

 reduce the shade for the coffee. If the coffee is 

 eliminated at the end of the fourth year, as has been 

 done on many estates, no great harm is done to 

 the rubber beyond a slightly restricted condition of 

 development. If, however, an attempt is made to 

 obtain a crop of coffee in the fifth year, the rubber- 

 trees undoubtedly suffer, and unevenness in their de- 

 velopment becomes most noticeable. Moreover, the 

 thick growth of the coffee-bushes interferes seriously 

 with the supervision of tapping, with the result that 

 the work is badly done and very costly. 



One reason given by planters in Java for growing 

 coffee together with rubber is that the former serves 

 to make the estate popular with labourers, for the 

 reason that they earn better wages at picking coffee than 

 at any other cultivation in Java. It is easy work, and 

 a woman with one or two of her children to help her 

 frequently obtains a wage of i guilder (is. 8d.) a day. 



The financial point of view must also be considered. 

 With a small crop in the second year, another of 10 

 to 12 hundredweights per acre in the third, and an 

 even greater yield in the fourth season, with this coffee 

 selling at its present price of about 50 shillings per 

 hundredweight, an actual profit of 30 sterling per 

 acre can be made by the time the rubber-trees are 

 ready for tapping. In other words, the rubber has 

 cost nothing, and a clear 30 per acre has been made 

 over the area cultivated. Moreover, catch crops of 

 coffee under existing conditions appeal to the managers 

 of estates, as a percentage of the profits falls to them. 



Clean weeding, apart from those estates interplanted 

 with coffee, is not the general rule in Java. Planters 



