RUBBER GROWING IN PERAK. 

 By L. Wrat, Jun. 



Seeds of Para Rul^ber were first obtained some twenty -four 

 yeai's ago, and the introduction is tlms described in tlie Economic 

 Products of Britisli India — " On the 4th June, 1873, the Director 

 of Kew Gardens received from Mr. Markham some hundreds of 

 seeds which had been collected by Mr. J. Collins. Of these less 

 than a dozen germinated, and six were in that year taken out 

 by Dr. King to Calcutta. These did not succeed well in Cal- 

 cutta, and it was accordingly arranged that Ceylon should l)e 

 established as the depot for supplying young plants to the 

 parts of India where Hevea cultivation was thought possible. 

 On the 14th June, 1876, 70,000 seeds were received at Kew from 

 Mr. Wickham (who was paid for them at the rate of ^£10 per 

 1,000) ; 4 per cent germinated. Of these, 1,919 jilants were 

 sent to Ceylon in 38 Wardian cases, in charge of a gardener, 

 and 90 per cent reached in excellent condition." It must have 

 been some of these plants which were procured by Sir 

 Hugh Low, for in his Annual Report for the year 1883 he says 

 that the trees at Kuala Kangsar were six years old. In the 

 report for the previous year he says that " seeds and plants of 

 Hevea hraziliensis have been distributed to Java and Singapore, 

 to Ceylon and to India." These original trees are thei'efore now 

 about twenty-one years old, and the second generation of trees 

 at Kuala Kangsar are some fourteen years old. 



In 1887 some seeds were obtained from the Kuala Kangsar 

 trees and planted in the Museum grounds, Taiping. The soil is 

 very bad, the land having all been mined over, l)ut still the trees 

 have grown well and have attained, in the ten years which have 

 elapsed since they Avere planted, a considei'able size. 



Finding that they grew so well I ventured, in 1891, to write 

 to Sir F. A. Swettenham, the then British Resident of Perak, 

 suggesting that they should be planted on waste lands and, as 

 a result, Mr. 0. Marks, then Superintendent of Government 

 Plantations, put out a number of trees at Kuala Kangsar, which 

 are now about six years old. and are doing very well It is 

 much to be regretted that more were not planted at that time. 



