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FICUS BRACTEATA. 



Editor, 



In reference to your note in August Bulletin in regard to 

 Ficus bracteata there is a big spreading tree of this in the Kuala 

 Lumpur Gardens, just a little way past the plant house. It was 

 evidently growing there before the ground was converted into a 

 garden. I collected specimens from this last May, and noted at 

 the time, 'Marge spreading tree." If you are that way again, look 

 for it and you will see there is nothing of the shiub about the 

 old veteran, 



C. CURTIS, 



Rubber, a new industry in Guatemala. 



From the Diplomatic and Consular report on Guatemala for 

 1901, the following is extracted : — - 



The cultivation of the rubber tree and the export of the product 

 is a growth entirely of the last few years, and it is undoubtedly an 

 industry which is admirably suited to the coast districts of the 

 Republic, and should more than make up for the apparently per- 

 manent falling-off in the coffee-growing industry. Coffee, it has 

 now been found may be grown with ease in all countries when a 

 certain temperature prevails, and the consumption does not in- 

 crease in proportion to the supply ; while, on the other hand, good 

 rubber is as yet only obtainable in a few parts of the world, and 

 the demand increases every day, and this demand seems likely to 

 go on increasing with every new invention and improvement in 

 almost every branch of the manufacturing industries. 



It is therefore worth the while ol those who are considering: the 

 advisability of a planter's life in tropical countries, to enquire into 

 the details of rubber planting, at any rate, so far as Central Ame- 

 rica is concerned, where concessions of land are easily obtainable at 

 very cheap rates, and where the huge markets of the United States 

 lie so close at hand. 



It must be remembered, of course, that the returns are consider- 

 ably longer in coming in than in many crops, for rubber takes ten 

 years to yield a full crop. A person thoroughly acquainted with 

 these subjects recently explained to me that the method he would 

 follow would be to plant a grove of, say. 100,000 plants, which at 

 the end of five years would yield a certain crop, say one-third of 

 what fully matured trees should yield. At the end of the fifth 

 ear. the plants should be thinned down to half their number, or 

 50,000, on these 50,000 trees of five years old a handsome sum 

 would be realised which would entirely repay the original outlav, 

 the running expenses being paid by the cultivation of some such 

 fruit as the banana, thus leaving the planter at the end of five 

 ears with all his outlay paid, and a grove in his possession yield- 

 ing a larger product every year, and the expenses of his plantation 

 paid by the secondary crop of bananas. 



