96 RUBBER AND 



it is intended to plant rubber where other agricultural 

 products are already established, the fact of a good 

 return from crops of any other kind may be taken as 

 an earnest of good crops of rubber to come. 



Throughout the tropics good forest land is always 

 best for planting if it is obtainable, and it is greatly 

 superior to grass land or land which has already been 

 cropped. The greater part of the rubber in the Malay 

 Peninsula has been planted where virgin forests have 

 been cleared, and in every country this is one of the 

 most frequent conditions. In Ceylon a great deal of 

 rubber has also been planted through existing fields 

 of tea, in Sumatra on old tobacco land, and in Java 

 amongst various other products. Where such methods 

 are adopted the cost of clearing and weeding are 

 debited to the original crops, but the growth of the 

 rubber must be expected to be considerably slower than 

 on an original clearing opened for rubber alone. The 

 latter method is therefore the one to which we shall 

 devote the most attention. 



In selecting the site for a rubber estate several other 

 considerations besides soil and climate demand atten- 

 tion. Foremost among these is the question of 

 transport. Rubber is a commodity of which the bulk 

 is relatively small in comparison with its present value, 

 but the weight of the produce from a large estate is 

 by no means a negligible quantity. The conveyance 

 of food and other necessities for the labour force in- 

 volves a considerable amount of transport, and it must 



