540 



all plants to put down as a substitute for weeding. In many cases it 

 has taken less trouble to establish this plant than crotalaria, and it 

 thrives extremely well in the Malayan Peninsula on varying soils. 

 The peculiar habit of shutting up its leaves when touched is in its 

 favour. When rain falls at all heavily the leaves shut and the water 

 reaches the soil at once, but when the sun shines again the leaves open 

 up and protect the soil from its rays. 



My experience of this plant is that while it grows well on sloping 

 and dry land it seems to enjoy more moist conditions and can be seen 

 in great vigour in ravines and flat places where the moisture is more 

 abundant. 



Desmodium triflorum, a small creeping shamrock-like clover, has 

 the advantage that it grows only a. few inches high and covers the 

 ground with a turf easy and pleasant to walk on. It is, however, more 

 difficult to establish, and as it seeds very sparingly, it is not easy to 

 obtain any quantity of seed for planting. On one estate some two 

 hundred acres has been successfully laid down with this plant by tak- 

 ing it from neighbouring waste land and planting it as soon as the land 

 w T as cleared. 



The question of the best method of establishing one or other of 

 the substitute for weeds or clean weeding is being experimented on 

 both at the Experiment Plantations of this department and by various 

 planters who are alive to the great advantages to be gained if they can 

 cover their ground with a friendly plant. By far the best time to 

 establish one of these plants at a minimum cost is directly the land 

 has been burnt off. In virgin land after burning no seeds of herbacious 

 plants are alive in the soil, and any seeds sown of plants planted have 

 no competitors and quickly take possession of the soil. Having once 

 got the plant established at the danger of lalang or . other weeds gaining 

 an entrance, the immediate necessity of putting the rubber in is over, 

 since the fields do not get any worse, but rather better for the recep- 

 tion of the rubber plants and the cost of cutting away the crotalaria, 

 mimosa or other plant to put in lines and holes is very little. Drains 

 are not necessary or even useful and thus another expense is saved. 

 The only weeding necessary is in case jungle trees or shrub sprout, 

 and these can easily be noticed among the prevalent growth of a 

 single plant and removed. No soil is lost from the beginning of the 

 opening of the land, and the gain in this to the roots of the rubber 

 plant is not to be neglected. 



The chief arguments, and they are many and constant, against the 

 adoption or even the trial of the abandonment of weeding in favour of 

 a green manure are : That it has never been done in rubber or in other 

 tropical products, an argument which is always used to discourage any 

 new departure. That the plants suggested will not take pessession of 

 the land to the exclusion of other plants — weeds. This can be met 

 by an appeal to experimental plots, and as far as I have observed where 

 care is taken and money spent, even in two or three year old clearings, 

 these plants can be established in a short time. 



It must be remembered that even if 30 per cent of the surface. of 

 the land is covered by harmful weeds, and the rest by one selected 



