329 



He was employed as assistant in the Botanic Gardens, Singapore, 

 temporarily, from June I, 1902, to July 1903, and conducted a num- 

 ber of experiments in rubber tapping and preparing in these days, 

 adding a great deal to our knowledge. He left to take charge of the 

 Kamuning Estate at Sungei Siput, and in 1909 took charge of the 

 United Rubber Estates in Singapore. 



He had a very good knowledge of rubber work and was very 

 ingenious in inventing various improvements, and was frequently a 

 correspondent to the Bulletin. He possessed also some knowledge of, 

 and interest in, ethnology and botany, and his name has been associa- 

 ted with the grand palm Borassus Machadonis, the only really 

 indigenous palm of that group Borassineae in Asia, and Saccolabium 

 Machadonis, etc. — Ed. 



Mr. J. B. Carruthers. 



It is with the deepest regret that we have to record the sad death 

 of Mr. J. B. Carruthers in Trinidad on July 2 1st from, it is said, 

 Septicpneumonia. 



The loss of so excellent an agriculturist at so early an age as 

 fortyone is a serious loss to the whole world of tropical Agriculture. 



Mr. John Bennett Carruthers was the second son of Mr. William 

 Carruthers, formerly head of the Botanic Department of the British 

 Museum, a botanist well-known for his palaco-botanical and agricul- 

 tural work. 



Mr. J. B. Carruthers was educated at Dulwich College and the 

 Royal School of Mines and at Greifswald University in Prussia. He 

 became demonstrator of Botany in the Royal Veterinary College, 

 London, in 1892, and Professor of Botany at the College of Dowton, 

 Wiltshire, 1894, and in 1898 went to Ceylon to investigate the disease 

 of cocoa under the joint auspices of the Government and Ceylon 

 Planters' Association, and was appointed Mycologist to the Govern- 

 ment of Ceylon and assistant director of the Peradeniya Gardens. 

 While here he did good work in research into diseases of cocoa and 

 in other agricultural work. 



In 1905 he was appointed Director of Agriculture and Government 

 Botanist in the Federated Malay States and founded the Kuala 

 Lumpur Experimental Gardens. He was co-editor of this Bulletin 

 and contributed papers to it, besides publishing extensive annual 

 reports on the work in agriculture in the F.M.S. 



He resigned this position to go to Trinidad last year, and com- 

 menced work there in the matters of rubber and cocoa, when his 

 untimely death cut him off in his prime. 



H. N. Ridley. 



