48 PARA RUBBER. 



Albizzia moluccana is one of the quickest-growing trees known, 

 but it is not easily propagated from cuttings. The woody tissues pre- 

 ponderate, and the weight of leaf obtainable within one or two years 

 is less than with Dadaps. The leaves are a valuable plant 

 food, and if the trees are regularly lopped will give a fair amount of 

 material fit to be buried. A one-acre plot, planted in July, 1904, 20 

 feet apart, gave up to January, 1906, 3,246 lb. of green material and 

 woody twigs, so that if planted as close as the Dadaps (8 by 4) they 

 should yield about 13,000 lb. per acre per year. On some rubber 

 estates the young Albizzia plants have been so pruned as to be easily 

 overtopped by two-year-old Para rubber trees, the branches and 

 foliage of the Albizzia trees covering the greater part of the soil. The 

 fresh leaves contain 0*395 per cent, of nitrogen, 0*406 per cent, 

 of potash, 0T78 per cent, of phosphoric acid, and 0*441 per cent, of 

 lime. 



If it is found necessary to plant belts of trees enclosing various 

 sections of a Para rubber estate for the purpose of checking the 

 spread of disease, the possibility of using mixed lines of Dadap 

 and Albizzia trees should be worth considering ; the former can 

 be easily pruned and made to produce a close low-lying bushy 

 fence, and the latter allowed to grow and form a belt of foliage 

 and branches above the tops of the Dadap plants. 



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