383 



AGRICULTURAL BULLETIN 



OF THE 



STRAITS 



AND 



FEDERATED MALAY STATES. 



No. 9.] SEPTEMBER, 1908. [Vol. VII. 



WEEDING IN PARA RUBBER CULTIVATION. 



By J. B. Carruthers. 



Rubber cultivation in the East is a comparatively new industry 

 and has not the advantages of long experience to help in deciding as 

 to the best and most economical modes of cultivation. 



Experience gained in growing coffee, tea, cacao, &c, has been 

 used in determining methods for the conduct of a rubber estate and 

 it is perhaps natural that a successful tea or coffee planter should 

 cling to those which he has found of value in his previous agricultural 

 experience. 



In the same way the methods used in the cultivation of tea, 

 coffee, &c, were to some extent the results of experience gained in 

 England and Scotland in the growing of turnips, wheat? cabbages, &c, 

 in a temperate climate. 



The desire to retain his own methods in a foreign country even 

 when those methods are suited specially to his home land is a British 

 characteristic. Forms of Government, clothes, games and other 

 habits of life are introduced into countries where the climatic condi- 

 tions are very different from that of his own country. 



In agriculture this characteristic has led in some cases to im- 

 provements in native methods of cultivation but has also frequently 

 caused the adoption of methods admirable in Europe but unsuitable 

 for tropical and sub-tropical climates. 



In the case of weeding, the practice which obtains in the cultiva- 

 tion of cereal crops in a northern country cannot be of great value in 

 deciding what should be the method adopted in growing trees as a 

 permanent cultivation, in a country, where the temperature and 

 moisture are always favourable to rapid plant growth, where the sun 

 is so powerful as to dry up all moisture from the surface layers of the 

 soil, and where the rain often descends so heavily that in one day it 

 may pour on the earth as much as in six months in England. 



In rubber cultivation it is advisable to attack the question with- 

 out preconceived ideas and to use only the experience of conditions 

 similar to those under which the rubber is to be grown. 



