102 



The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



Eight Years' Bark Renewal. 



We have given very copious extracts from the 

 article referred to, and for the moment our main 

 interest lies in the statement that under certain 

 circumstances a period of bark renewal of eight 

 years may be superior to one of four years. 

 We hasten to assure our eperimenterb that we 

 would welcome such a period were it found pos- 

 sible to adopt it with an assurance that crops 

 would not suffer in consequence. Our views on 

 the retention of bark are too well-known to re- 

 quire repetition here. 



Another View. 



We sent a copy of the document to a gentle- 

 man who has obtained some excellent results 

 by daily tapping young and old trees, and whose 

 experience has been particularly successful. 

 His full reply, without comment one way or 

 the other by ourselves, is here given : — 



" The result is certainly very queer and un- 

 expected. So far as I can understand the re- 

 sults, the total yield in the first three years of 

 the experiments was greater by a good deal 

 from the trees tapped at short intervals than 

 from those tapped at long, and it is only in the 

 fourth year of tapping that the results of the 

 latter begin to approximate the former. The 

 conclusion, 60 far as theso figures go, would 

 seem to be that one should begin to tap one's 

 trees at first at short intervals, and that liter on 

 one should gradually increase the tapping in- 

 terval. But this paper only deals with trees 

 of 20 years old, which, until they were 23 

 years old, gave the best results with the 

 short interval My own conclusion from 

 the paper is tha.. ths~e results are not of 

 much value owing to the absurdly close dis- 

 tance at which the trees aie planted. 600 lb, 

 odd per acre is an extremely small yield from 

 trees of 23 years old, and the only valid conclu- 

 sion that one can come to is that they should be 

 cut out and the experiments all begun again be- 

 fore one can form any definite idea as to how 

 the trees would behave if grown under normal 

 conditions. Everybody knows that when trees 

 are closely planted the bark renewal is very 

 poor, and it does not follow that if the bark re- 

 newal were good, the c inclusions would be the 

 same. Do you agree, Mr Edv or ?" 



Will our Ceylon experimenters kindly give us 

 their views on those of the correspondent pub- 

 lished above? The subject is of more than 

 ordinary interest, and we should much like to 

 have the question freely discussed. 



General Planting Experience. 



So far the results obtained by the writer in 

 countries having a wide range of climate, and in 

 soils havii g different physical and chemical 

 characters, point to a frequency of forty-eight 

 hours as generally being the best for the estate. 

 We are not so foolish as to assert that the same 

 result woulil follow the same practice on trees 

 apparently identical in all respects ; we know, 

 too well, that similar trees give entirely different 

 yields though tapped on the same system, and 

 that almost identical results may sometimes be 

 obtained by widely different methods. We be- 

 lieve that the natural variability in caoutchouc- 

 yielding capacity of Hevea trees is enormous, 



and are glad to note that the experiments in 

 Ceylon have been going on for nearly four years; 

 while the length of time will wipe out many 

 variations, we cannot say the same on the num- 

 ber factor, the fewness of the trees experimen- 

 ted upon unfortunately mitigating the value of 

 the work in progress. 



While we find that alternate-day tapping 

 gives a satisfactory yield and permits of good 

 estate organisation, we know that many planters 

 in charge of important estates, e.g., Cicely, 

 Kuala Lumpur, etc. , are in favour of reducing 

 the interval, and are going in for daily tapping. 

 A perusal of the chapter on methods of tapping 

 on modern estates, in Wright's "Fourth Edition 

 of Para Rubber," will indicate the number of 

 estates going in for a reduction of the tapping 

 interval. This is a change effected by men Who 

 have purely commercial ends in view; we take 

 it that no one will care to deny that the practical 

 man generally selects the sound method in the 

 long run. And yet the recent Ceylon experi- 

 ments suggest that the longer the interval be- 

 tween tapping (within limits), the larger the 

 yield of rubber per tapping. 



We would ask everyone to ponder over the fact 

 that managers — especially in Malaya — previously 

 keen on alternate day tapping, are now advoca- 

 ting daily tapping, against the view expressed 

 by our Ceylon experts that tapping ouce Der 

 week gives larger yields than tapping more fre- 

 quently. Somebody must be at sea. Either our 

 planters are wasting labour and bark on an 

 enormous scale, or the Ceylon experts are work- 

 ing under conditions and with materials not 

 comparable with an average Hevea estate. 



We hope that the suggested delay, owing to 

 stress of work, in submitting further accounts 

 of these experiments will be overcome. The 

 newly-appointed Director, at Peradeniya, would 

 be acting wisely if ho placed the publication of 

 these results in hand at once; they are of vast 

 importance, even though somewhat revolution- 

 ary, to investors in this country, as well as to 

 residents in the tropics.— India Rubber Journal, 

 July 13. 



GREEN TEA IN RUSSIA. 



With reference to green tea in Russia, the re- 

 port of H.M Consul-General at Odessa (Mr. C S 

 Smith) on the trade of that district in 1911, 

 has th* following: " There has been an extra- 

 ordinary increase in the demand for green tea, 

 nearly twenty times as much now buiug im- 

 ported into Russia as in 1904. It enters princi- 

 pally through Ratoura, and is almost entirely 

 consumed in Tu'kestan and the Russian pro- 

 vinces of Central Asia. It appears toat the 

 Mahoinedans of Central Asia, whose religion 

 forbids the use of intoxicant*, have taken to tea- 

 drinking. Their daraand is for green tea, aud 

 has created an entirely new market which does 

 not in any way aflvct the sales of black tea. It 

 may be possible to fiud similar converts to t«a- 

 drinking in other parts of the world, thus creat- 

 ing a fresh impulse to the production of green 

 tea, which had been somewhat discouiagel by 

 American legi lation prohibiting the importa- 

 tion of tea of the 1 faced ' description. — H. & C. 

 Mail, July 19. 



