42 GUTTA CULTIVATION. 



growing seasons in the year, and may put on two layers of wood 

 in that time in place of one, as all trees in countries further 

 removed from the equator do. Taking this latter view of the 

 case the tree in question was between fifty and sixty years of age.* 

 Now trees of this size could not be planted closer than 50 feet 

 apart, or 17 to the acre, and it appears obvious that a yield of 

 39 lbs. of gutta from an acre of land after the lapse of sixty 

 years would not be a profitable investment of capital. At five 

 shillings per pound it would only be worth .£9 15s., or 3 s. Sd. 

 per acre per year. It appears to me that this estimate, 

 which is based on actual experiment, disposes of any idea of 

 cultivating gutta trees if the present method of harvesting the 

 crop is adopted. 



According to the experiments I made some years ago the 

 gutta obtained by the native way of collecting only amounts to 

 one- fortieth of the gum contained in the bark of the trunk of 

 the tree, without taking into account the gutta in the bark of 

 the branches and leaves. Now supposing that by any process it 

 were possible to extract, say three- fourths of this, or thirty times 

 the amount of gutta given above from the seventeen trees 

 already mentioned, the total value would be =£292, or d£4 17 s. 

 per year per acre of land, an amount whicli would appear to 

 hold out promise of a profitable retui'n. The trees could be 

 planted much closer in the first instance, and crops obtained at 

 intervals by the thinning out of the trees as they became too 

 crowded, and it seems probable that this would at least give as 

 much gutta as that yielded by the main crop. It is perhaps 

 i;nnecessary to do more than point out that a plantation once 

 having been started would go on indefinitely if managed on the 

 ordinary principles of European forestry. 



From Avhat has been said it will be seen that the whole 

 question of the possibility of the cultivation of gutta trees lies 

 in the solution of the problem of the economic extraction of the 

 whole, or at least of the major portion of the gum contained in 

 the tissues of the trees. In the year 1883 I made suggestions 

 for effecting this object,t but it was found on a trial being 



* Mr. N. Cantley in " Notes on Economic Plants, being an Appendix to the Report 

 on the Forest Department of the Straits Settlements for the year, 1886." Writes "gutta 

 percha {dicJio/isis ijitftit), from statistics alforded l)y plants growing in the nursery, 

 this plant, the best variety of gutta pereha tree, seems a moderately fast grower. A 

 plant planted in 1879 is now twenty -live feet in height and twelve inches in circum- 

 ference at six feet above the ground. This gives an average yearly growth in height of 

 about three and a half feet, and an annual increase in circumference of about one and 

 one -fourth inchs." 



Taking this rate of growth and applying it to the two feet diameter tree above 

 mentioned it makes its age sixty years. 



tGutta I'roducing Trees. "Journal Straits ]5ranch Royal Asiatic Society," No. 

 12, 1884, 



