23i 



where). Seed can be preserved for many months by mixing it with 

 pounded charcoal. 



Experiments in raising seed in seed-beds are detailed. Seed vege- 

 table loam, ash and kerosine are mixed, the latter to prevent the ants 

 from carrying off the seed. (In the Straits Settlements we find it 

 better to raise the seed in boxes over water, the use of kerosine to 

 protect seeds from the attacks of ants has not proved very successful). 

 Transplanting nurseries, and planting out are described. All the plant- 

 ing seems to be done through forest much as we plant gutta percha 

 here. Tapping is done with a V shaped gouge about \\ inch wide, 

 with the aid of a small wooden mallet. The cuts are made horizon- 

 tally on alternate sides of the branches, care being taken not to cut 

 the cambium. The cuts are 15 inches apart and go more than half, 

 but less than two-thirds of the circumference of the bough. No 

 bough less than 2 feet round is tapped. Arrow-shaped and oblique 

 cuts give less latex than horizontal ones. The latex coagulates in the 

 cuts and is stripped off when dry. The overflow is caught on well 

 dried bamboo mats laid on the ground, and it has been the custom 

 to stain these mats with a decoction of 1 part of rubber bark in 60 

 parts of water, boiled for 5 hours so as to colour the mat rubber like 

 that of the bark rubber. The mats are used over and over again till 

 they are thickly coated with rubber which is drird in the sun usually 

 for two days, and peeled off. Catching the latex in tins or cups 

 has been found to > expensive. The latex in the cuts is usually dry 

 enough to be peeled out in three days. This is classed as A that 

 which runs down the tree and is collected from the trunk as B and 

 these take ten days to dry, mat rubber C takes a month. When 

 dry the rubber is pressed with a screw-press into an 18 inch cube 

 and packed in cotton cloth after 24 hours. The greatest yield is 

 from November to the middle of January, the colder the weather 

 the greater is said to be the out-turn. Rain is injurious. The yield 

 of small trees up to 3 or 4 feet girth in Assam is too poor to be 

 worth tapping and trees will not stand annual tapping, once in 

 three years is as much as they will stand. Twenty-one selected 

 trees gave in three successive years 46, 48 and 9 lbs. of rubber, and 

 this falling off of yield in the third year seems to be general whether 

 •old cuts are re-opened or new ones made. The out turn of rubber 

 per acre seems very variable, thus in Java 72 acres of 5,200 trees 

 tapped at 14 years' age gave after 7 years work 71 lbs. rubber per 

 annum. In Charduar, trees from 23 to 25 years old gave about ^th 

 of this amount. 



Tables of growth in height and girth are given from which it 

 appears that the average girth of a tree at 7 years is 2*35 feet, which 

 is the earliest age at which it is worth tapping. The amount of 

 resin in the rubber of different plantations varies 3 to 7 per cent, in 

 normal Ficus elastica to as much as 19 per cent, in the Charduar 

 rubber. 



