218 
sim s styled Mientsuan, aps he Fuhomei, Sears and Paoh- 
ing, res ly, were t e joint pes eases dar e two first named 
for that one year sold for Prose the next year business 
in In at a standstill owing to local disturbances caused 
by " * Kachin revolt." € two Yunnanese Ania agreed to pay 
auction cand realised a lac of rupees. 
The forest officer attached to the Mogaung column has no doubt 
reported on the general distribution of the Ficus elastica and on the 
Kachin methods of tapping it. I shall, therefore, touch very briefly 
upon these subjects. he Chinese say that the India-rubber tree 
w 
been hitherto procured in forests distant from four to six x days journey 
n of Kamein. An equally large supply should soon, it is said, be 
obtained hut the Endaw and Laotsun districts. On the recent 
dere e few trees seen were strong and — ant though 
ered with innumerable small incisions even up to the tiny topmost 
; branches, they had erii not been drained to the extent of one-half 
their power. In the early days the Kachins made the natural mistake, 
. Boon discovered and rectified, of over-bleeding the trees ; it was in this 
way ascertained that a large tree if bled to death would yield 500 viss of 
rubber in the course of a single seas 
Mogaung is the headquarters of the ‘India-rubber trade. Of the total 
ese supply four-fifths are brought. into Mogaung by Kachins, the 
whom are in the regular employ of the Chinese lessees, and 
onec fifh i is purchased in the districts by Chinese PT of the lessees, 
Under the present system the Chinese manager at Mogaung, a man 
named Li, makes liberal advances to Kachins to die as their expenses 
during the collecting season, which lasts from September till June. 
a ad 
This system orir “inconvenient to both part mee sometime e since 
abandoned by mutual consent. The Kachin nis now edited. ihe 
