122 THE WHOLE ART OF RUBBER-GROWING 



rubber has a peculiar value in itself. It is a mistake 

 to suppose that tapioca unduly exhausts the soil and 

 that the land is consequently unsuitable for rubber. 

 Certainly it is a plant that will greedily absorb all the 

 humus it can, but the same must be said of any other 

 surface-feeding plant, and it is idle to imagine that 

 on that account the land loses any of the value it may 

 possess for a forest tree like rubber. In calculating 

 the advantages tapioca land possesses over jungle for 

 rubber planting, we have to take into consideration 

 the labour cost and loss of revenue that will be occa- 

 sioned when the tapioca is abandoned. Yet in the 

 general scale this is not a heavy item. As a rule it 

 will work out something like the following : 



Per act e. Per acre. 



Value of tapioca land (not interplanted 



with rubber) 20 



Value of jungle land cleared ready for 



planting rubber ... ... ... 5 



Cost of planting cleared jungle land ... 5 10 

 Cost of maintaining ditto to producing 



stage 15 



Total cost of acquiring, clearing and 

 planting jungle land, and maintain- 

 ing to producing stage 25 10 



Here we have an apparent saving of only $ per 

 acre (a satisfactory item in itself) in the case of 

 tapioca land ; but we have to remember that two or 

 more crops of tapioca may confidently be relied upon 

 whilst the rubber is growing, and the returns per acre 

 may in the aggregate be put down in this instance 

 at 12 for the period stated. The cost of bringing 



