26 



The Oldest Rubber Trees in Ceylon, 



A visit was made to the Henaratgoda Gardens to see 

 the trees raised from seeds in 1876 and to study the 

 «ifect of the various tapping experiments which the writer 

 •conducted prior to the Ceylon Rubber Exhibition. The 

 trees have not been systematically tapped since the period 

 mentioned, and an excellent opportunity was afforded to 

 judge the quality of the work done by Singhalese coolies 

 with the minimum supervision. The work of any rubber 

 planter can easily be valued after an interval of two 

 years; wherever the cambium or wood has been damaged, 

 ugly irregular knots and gaping wounds are presented; 

 if the best work has been done, the renewed bark will, 

 after many years, present a relatively even surface. 



SIfect of Tapping Old Trees. 



It is to the credit of the Sinhalese coolies that only 

 about 2 per cent, of the trees which were tapped during 

 1905 and 1906 show faulty work. Two of the trees 

 which are now knotty and partially decayed were origin- 

 ally bad specimens, the bark being uneven in thickness 

 and warty; they were tapped every day for nearly a year, 

 and during rainy weather their roots were occasionally 

 under water for a week at a time. 



The rest of the trees, tapped every alternate day, twice 

 per week, once per month, etc., have healed wonderfully 

 well. Even the specimens which by high tapping gave 

 14 lb. and 15 lb. of rubber each appear to be in excellent 

 health, and would probably double or treble their past 

 yields at a little sacrifice. They were all old trees (about 

 ten to fifteen years) when tapped, and their healing 

 capacity cannot be compared with that of young trees on 

 ■estates. 



The renewed bark is, in the majority of cases, nearly 

 'Cqual in thickness to that of the primary, untapped bark; 

 the outer, dark, thin bark on the renewed tissue is peel- 

 ing off and exposing a lighter-coloured, healthy, corky 

 layer. I tapped several specimens and obtained an abun- 

 dant flow of latex of fair consistency. The primary 

 "bark on trees 68, 56, 29, and 18 inches girth was fi, f, | 

 and J inch respectively in thickness; the renewed bark 

 ivas generally about | of an inch thinner, the interval of 



