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Method of Planting. 



As most readers of the " India-Rubber Journal " 

 know, fresh seeds, basket plants, or stumped seedling's 

 from the nursery may be used in planting up an estate. 

 The stumping of nursery plants is a very drastic opera- 

 tion, the foliage and green parts above ground, and also 

 the lateral roots and part of the main or tap root, being 

 deliberately cut away, leaving a thin rod of living material 

 similar in general appearance to a straight wallilng stick. 

 This simple structure, the lower part of which is root and 

 the upper part stem, is put into a recently re-fillcd hole, in 

 vi'et weather, and allowed to throw out roots and leaves 

 as well as it can. It is a marvel so many stumps sur- 

 vive and grow into such enormous, healthy, trees. Most 

 of the nursery plants are, when thus operated upon, less 

 than twelve months old, but I heard of several three- 

 year-old plants being stumped and planted with such suc- 

 cess that a visitor to the estate at a subsequent date put 

 two years on to the age of the plantation. But whatever 

 the appearances of such a property may be, it is as well 

 to remember that the plants have not got either the lateral 

 root system or main tap root which they naturally possess 

 and require. What white ants would do with such plants 

 may be conjectured. 



Planting from nursery stumps is sometimes the only 

 system possible, but if I were planting my own property 

 it is the last method I should think of adopting. The 

 results which have been obtained by the use of basket 

 plants — seedlings reared in friable, loose, baskets for 

 two or three months, and planted in the field without 

 destroying or even disturbing the foliar or root struc- 

 tures — are magnificent, especially when compared with 

 those obtained from stumps. There is a minimum num- 

 ber of vacancies and less likelihood of encouraging white 

 ants, borers, and fungi when basket plants or seeds at 

 stake are used; the cuts, bruises, and dead parts on 

 stumped seedlings are sources of danger. 



The splendid growth obtained on rubber estates planted 

 with basket plants has attracted attention even in Europe, 

 one firm having gone to the trouble of ordering a trial 

 consignment of empty baskets from Ceylon for use on 

 their West African plantation. If the baskets, which 



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