263 



voted the funds for the upkeep of a rubber Experiment Station in the 

 North- West district. It is stated that many applications for land for 

 rubber-planting purposes have been received since the conditions under 

 which such land may be leased have been settled. 



In St. Lucia, there are some few hundred Castilloa trees, chiefly 

 planted through cacao estates, and from nine to twelve years old. 

 Tappings of some of the older trees have been undertaken with satis- 

 factory results, and about two years ago samples of St. Lucia rubber 

 were valued at 5s. per lb. in London. 



Castilloa is also regarded as the best rubber tree for cultivation in 

 Dominica. The trees grow well and can be expected to yield good 

 rubber in eight to ten years from the time of planting. The fact that 

 sheet rubber from Dominica was valued at 5s. 7d. to 5s. 9d. per lb. in 

 London in 1906 indicates that no doubt need be entertained as to 

 whether a product of high quality can be produced in the island. 

 Samples of Para rubber, the first produced in Dominica, were forward- 

 ed to London in 1907, together with further specimens of Castilloa. 

 Both were favourably reported upon, but the Para samples were 

 adjudged the best. 



Agricultural Neivs VII, 156 page 113. 



A DISEASE OF CLOVES. 



The clove tree which was cultivated to a considerable extent in 

 Singapore at the same time as the nutmeg, seems to have been aban- 

 doned as a cultivation about the same time viz., in 1860, when the 

 nutmeg disease practically exterminated the plantations. I find no 

 record however of any disease of the clove at that time, but it is prob- 

 able that the fungus described in this paper was the real cause of its 

 death, or abandonment of cultivation. Till lately there were in old 

 gardens a good many of the old nutmeg trees dating from the great 

 cultivations of before 1860, but these are now nearly all gone. I do 

 not however know of any large and old clove trees left of anything 

 like that date. It may be doubted whether the clove tree lives at least 

 in Singapore to such an age as the nutmeg. A very old tree on the 

 bandstand in the Singapore Botanic Gardens, has been gradually 

 dying for some years and though but little of it is left it still produces 

 fruit on the remaining branches. This tree though in poor soil and 

 exposed to full sun does not seem to be badly affected by the red spot 

 fungus which I am about to describe, though the disease can be seen 

 here and there on the tree. 



The clove tree is not liable to many diseases as far as I have yet 

 seen. A borer caterpillar is troublesome in Penang, and I have seen 

 trees killed by a vicious underground mycelium of some fungus, in 

 Malacca, but none of these seem as serious as the red spot fungus, 

 which is not only capable of eventually killing a tree but is very persis- 

 tent in its attacks, recurring again and again. 



It appears to the naked eye as a dark red spot visible on both 

 s urfaces, from about 1/20 of an inch across, gradually spreading till it 

 attains a diameter of 1/5 of an inch or more. It is of irregular outline 



