ideal conditions for the propagation and distribution of all kinds of 

 disease through the milk sold. 



It is unreasonable to expect that the native cow keeper will ever 

 improve his methods unless force is brought to bear on him by the 

 authorities and a properly organized scheme is introduced for their 

 management, under strict Government supervision, and the scientific 

 improvement of the present breed of Dairy cattle. 



T. W. Main. 



SOME DISEASES OF RUBBER PLANTS. 



In the Bulletin du Department de' 1' Agriculture des Indes Neer- 

 landaises, No. 12. Ill, Dr. Bernard gives an interesting article on 

 diseases of rubber plants under the title of " Sur quelgues Maladies des 

 Plantes a caoutchouc." Under a chapter " considerations generales " he 

 points out that plant pathology is an art still in its infancy and shows 

 how much more difficult a study it is than animal pathology, as a sick 

 animal shows signs of its ailment externally, while a plant may be 

 seriously ill and show very few signs of it, and again while it is easy to 

 administer medicines internally to animals we can only make use of 

 surgical operations and hygiene to plants, at present. Plants under 

 cultivation are necessarily put under abnormal conditions. They are 

 usually cultivated in a country remote from their original home and 

 under a different climate. Wild plants grow separately, not crowded 

 together as in cultivation but isolated through the forests which 

 prevents the spread of any ailment by which they are attacked. 



He dilates on some of the important points in cultivation which 

 have for their object the hygiene of the plant, such as attending 

 to the straightening of the tap-root when planting out, the eradication 

 of lalang and its replacement by beneficial herbaceous plants, and the 

 thorough digging over of the ground, and strongly condemns the plant- 

 ing of Hevea in old coffee ground, where he says a disease may spread 

 from the old worn out coffee-bushes to the young Heveas, and as strongly 

 urges the breaking up of the estate by barriers of other plants to 

 prevent the spreading of disease; Hevea plantations being broken up 

 into lots with Ficus elastica barriers. 



Further experimental research with a view of obtaining more 

 vigorous and disease resisting strains, and varieties giving an increased 

 and superior product are required : such studies as have been made in 

 tobacco and sugar cultivation with such remarkable results. There 

 have been as yet few of these investigations made on the Para rubber, 

 for in the first place the experiments which can readily be made on an 

 annual plant such as tobacco, must take a far longer period in a tree 

 such as Hevea, and secondly because in Java there are too few trees 

 old enough to be utilised for such experiments and thirdly because the 

 demand for plants has been so much greater than the supply that all 

 the plantlets have been required for cultivation rather than for experi- 

 ment. When however the boom of late years has passed and the 

 cultivation has settled down into a steady course opportunities for such 

 research and investigation will be found and used. 



