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and collected in tins which he describes nearly two years before Mr. 

 Parkin discovered the method of making it in this manner, and it 

 was by no means the first sample sent home to the rubber dealers 

 from the Straits. 



Rubber grown by Mr. Tan Chay Yan, the first practical rubber 

 planter in the Colony, was exhibited at the Malacca show in 1898. 

 This was the first Para rubber shown for competition from the 

 Straits. It was grown in Malacca at Bukit Lintang. 



In Mr. Derry's report of Government Plantations in Perak 1897, 

 he says : 



**Many trees have been tapped and a report on the work 

 submitted. The rubber obtained is not yet sufficiently smoked for 

 sending home, but samples have been valued in Mincing Lane at 2/8 

 and 3/- a pound and considered equal to the best Brazilian produced 

 rubber and also worth i/- a pound more than that usually sent home 

 from the Straits. He gives also a number of figures of returns from 

 trees of various ages." He sent home in 1899 the first large parcel 

 of Para rubber from the Malay Peninsula ; it reahsed £61. I. 6. 



Willis' "Agriculture in the Tropics," which we do not intend to 

 review here, only gives an account of Tropical Agriculture as 

 seen in Ceylon. Economic plants not cultivated or of importance 

 there are scrappily and often inaccurately described (e.g. Sago, 

 Ipecacuanha.) It is apparently not intended for a general work 

 on Agriculture in the tropical regions, and this is doubtless the 

 reason why the work with Para rubber done in the Straits Settlements 

 is entirely ignored. Unfortunately it is clear from the journals 

 which quote from it that the readers are under the impression that 

 the account of the development of the rubber industry in Ceylon, 

 as given by Mr. Willis, gives the whole history of the rise of the 

 industry in the East which is far from being the case. 



Practically nothing was done in Ceylon to push the industry or 

 to experiment with the Para rubber trees from 1888 to 1897. Even 

 the stock of trees at the Gardens seems to have been hardly 

 increased. Meanwhile, at Singapore, as far as was possible, every- 

 thing had been got ready for the development of the future industry. 

 A large number, about 1,400 trees, had been planted to supply the 

 stock of seed, a good many dispersed to various parts of the Peninsula, 

 to District Officers and planters. Experiments in tapping in various 

 forms had been made, wound-response had been re-discovered, block 

 and biscuit rubber had been made, specimens exhibited at exhibitions, 

 distributed to various persons and institutions interested in planting, 

 and sent to rubber dealers who had valued it at the top price of the 

 market (1896), while a number of experiments in growth and flow of 

 latex had been tried. There is still in the Botanic Gardens museum 

 a biscuit dated 1890. It was coagulated without acid and is now 

 quite hard and stiff, though still fight in colour, a pale yellowish 

 white. The specimens dated 1893 and 1894 are black and are now 

 showing signs of deterioration, but still fairly sound and elastic. 



