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ted for all Gutta Percha producing trees. This recommendation was 

 acted upon. 



The rules were also amended and the felling of trees for the ex- 

 traction of the latex was prohibited. In addition to these precau- 

 tions departmental instructions were issued to the effect that no 

 licences for the extraction of Gutta Percha were to be issued. At 

 the present time therefore it must be difficult to collect Gutta Percha 

 and export it in sufficient quantities to make it pay. That a certain 

 amount of smuggling goes on, I have no doubt, from the fact that 

 2 or 3 cases have come to light in which Chinamen were found in 

 possession of small quantities and were convicted of the offence. 

 Since 1902 the staff of the Forest Department has been greatly 

 increased, and I have reason to believe that the Government have 

 done and are now doing all that is in their power to assist in the 

 preservation of this valuable product. 



As regards measures for protection from other causes of destruc- 

 tion, such as alienation of land for mining and agriculture, the only 

 plan is to reserve all the valuable Palaquium areas, constituting 

 them forest reserves wherever possible, without interfering with 

 valuable tin bearing land. We already have an area of about 

 60,000 acres reserved, fairly rich in young Palaquium chiefly in 

 Perak and Selangor, and probably as much more remains to be 

 taken up in Pahang and elsewhere. 



Again before any large area of land is alienated the department 

 is referred to, and if alienation takes place in spite of the presence 

 <>l Palaquium we are given the opportunity of taking away the 

 young plants and transplanting them into reserved areas. In the 

 eourse of time, when all forest reservation has reached its natural 

 limit, Palaquium is bound to disappear from areas outside, nor does 

 this matter, as it is only practically possible to watch defined areas 

 when placed completely under the control of the Forest Department. 



The exploitation of the Gutta Percha areas will only be possible 

 in reserved forests in a regular manner, areas being taken in hand 

 annually. 



The natural regeneration of Palaquium as already stated is very 

 good, but growth is slow and assistance must be given. Our object 

 now is to encourage only the best species, P. obi ongi folium and 

 Gutta. Regular plantations, i.e., planting in cleared areas from 

 s :ed is at present impossible in these States as no seed is available. 

 The method followed by the Forest Department here is to cut 

 lino through the dense undergrowth in the forest reserves, taking 

 up regular areas in turn, and to transplant into these lines young 

 Palaquium seedlings taken from outside the reserve in forests that 

 eann it for various causes be protected, or taken from groups 

 inside the reserve where they are growing too close together. At 

 the present time we have an area more than 1,000 acres so planted 

 in Selangor. 



In the Trollah reserve in Perak, Palaquium seedlings are so 

 numerous in the seedling and pole stage, that planting over a 



