In valuing an Estate, where pine- apple is used as a catch-crop, 

 it is fair and proper to take its v^alue into consideration if the pine 

 plants are 3 feet from the rubber and not more than 4 years old. Of 

 course only the expected crops should be valued — r reasonable re- 

 duction being made for the cost of harvesting and upkeep. 



RUBBER CULTIVATION IN COCHIN-CHINA. 



M. Morange sends us an interesting little paper on the cultivation 

 of rubber in Cochin-China. The first plants were introduced to 

 Saigon Gardens about 1880 and grew well, but disappeared in four 

 or five years. In 1891 M. Seligmann, after travelling in the 

 Malay Peninsula, brought some more but soon after these also 

 disappeared. Finally, in the end of 1897, M. Raoul brought seeds 

 from Ceylon, and they v/ere established plants by 1899. At preseiit 

 there are about twenty four plantations of different sized areas and 

 more are being opened. There were in round numbers about 750,000 

 trees planted by December 31, and reckoning those which will be 

 planted this year at 250,000, there should be a million trees in 

 Cochin-China by the end of 1910. 



The soil in many parts is good and the growth of the plants 

 equal to that of Ceylon, but inferior to that of Malaya. This, 

 suggests the author, is due to the absence of the continuous rains of 

 the Malay Peninsula, for in Cochin-China there is a dry season of 

 three or four months, from January to April. 



The planters are quite up-to-date as to stumping the ground, 

 using a stump extractor which is worked by six men and which 

 rciuoves 25 to 30 stumps of all sizes a day. The labour is chiefly 

 Annamite, but Javanese have been imported. The first ton of Para 

 Rubber was exported from Saigon by M. Belland in 1908. 



All the other well-known kinds of rubber have been tried, 

 Rambong, Ceara Rubber, Castilloa, and Funtumia besides, but these 

 have not given encouraging results. Jungle rubber from the forests 

 is almost negligible and has never paid the natives to collect. 



There is another article on the same subject by E. Deleurance, 

 in Le Caoutchouc et la Gutta Percha, in which the author considers 

 Cochin-China a very suitable country for the cultivation. He 

 considers the dry season of six months is advantageous in arresting 

 the development of fungi. The young plants develop most rapidly 

 in the early part of the dry season at the time that the adults shed 

 their leaves and put out fresh buds. A concession of 16,000 trees 

 near Saigon gave an average of I kil, 200 grams saleable rubber 

 (about 2]/2 lbs.) a year. 



