410 



The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



turtle shells were lying about, all with the mark 

 where they had been hit with an arrow, and I 

 was told that occasionally pacas. deer, and 

 cutias were shot. Even here there was a vague- 

 ness as to the whereabouts of the water lilies, 

 but a boy was found who said he knew the 

 place well, as he had been there to gather the 

 leaves to be made into medicine for consumption. 



We got into a canoe and were soon gliding 

 rapidly up a little outlet from the lake. The 

 stream flowed very rapidly ; numbers of birds 

 rose quite close to us, as our progress was very 

 silent among the half-submerged tree trunks. 

 The Lily's Haunts. 



The stream widened ; in front of us floated 

 six or seven plants of the lily we had come to 

 see. The great leaves lay on the water in groups, 

 each one, with its edges turned up, look- 

 ing like circular trays. The colour was a vivid 

 green, shading through red to brown. Among 

 them an object a foot long and five inches or so 

 across, covered with spine9 like some immense 

 horse-chestnut pod, caught the eye, and only 

 after close inspection did one realise that it was 

 a tightly rolled up leaf. The entire under-surface 

 of the leaves and the whole length of the stalk 

 were thickly covered with thorns, a very neces- 

 sary protection against the many denizens of 

 the river, who would like to make a meal of the 

 succulent plant. 



Water birds evidently walked on the floating 

 leaves, as shown by the footmarks on some of 

 them. The plants grew a few yards apart with 

 clear water between them, and the effect one 

 had expected from books, of the vast stretches 

 of huge green leaves entirely covering the sur- 

 face of the water, was absent. One group had two 

 flowers open, their creamy rose petals, some 15in. 

 across, emitting a faint odour, and, while hand- 

 some enough, not perhaps quite as beautiful as 

 one would be led to expect from the magnificent 

 appearance of the leaves. We tried to obtain 

 some roots to plant in a backwater near Manaos, 

 but all our efforts proved futile. The stalks were 

 terribly thorny, besides being slippery, so that 

 a firm hold was well-nigh impossible, and on 

 throwing down grappling irons the long juicy 

 stems always snapped. At the period when the 

 Amazon reached its lowest these plants would 

 be obviously nearly uncovered, and the seed pods 

 would be exposed all day to the fierce rays of the 

 sun to ripen their seeds, but at that time the 

 waterways, difficult enough to traverse now, would 

 be impassable even tor a canoe, as many fallen 

 tree trunks and creepers would hinder the way. 



Regretfully we abandoned our attempt to ob- 

 tain some plants, and returned to Manaos with 

 some fine leaves, flowers, and several of the spine- 

 clad unopened leaves, which proved to be objects 

 of great curiosity to the many Brazilian visitors 

 who came to see them.— London Times, Sept. 24. 



THINNING OUT HEVEA ESTATES. 



Conclusions Arrived At. 



We have, during the last few issues, given our 

 views on the subject of thinning out Hevea 

 estates in the Middle East, and we have supple- 

 mented our statements with the opinions of 

 prominent planters throughout the East. We 

 have solicited the views of Messrs C E Welldon, 

 Joseph Frazer, E G Windle, H M AUeyn, and J 

 H Wynell Mayow, well-known in connection 

 with Ceylon and Indian plantations ; the views 

 of planters in Malaya— Messrs R W Harrison, 

 Victor Kinloch, D Douglas, and T Wilson— have 

 also been inserted ; the views of Sumatran plan- 

 ters have been expressed by Mr J C Tate, and 

 of other areas by Directors such as M Sidney 

 Parry, A Bethune, R C Wright, A R tVilson- 

 Wood, Norman H Grieve, W F de Bois Mac- 

 laren, P J Burgess, and Sir William Hood- 

 Treacher, all gentlemen connected with plan- 

 tation work in many parts of the East. The 

 main points which we set out to settle were; 

 the number of trees which should be aimed at 

 as the minimum, whether thinning out should 

 bo done by cutting out alternate rows or careful 

 selection, and whether or not the trees to be 

 removed should have their stems drastically tap- 

 ped prior to their removal, 



IN umber of Trees Per Acre. 



On the number of trees per acre we find that 

 the Ceylon section prefer to have the largest 

 number of trees per acre. Mr Joseph Frazer 

 prefers a planting distance of 20 by 10 feet over 

 considerable area, and believes in reducing t*»e 

 number of trees later on to about 150 per acre. 

 Mr Mayow thinks the trees should be reduced 

 to 100, Mr Alleyn 100 to 120, and Mr C E Well- 

 don 120 trees per acre. Mr Windle in this 

 section aims at an average number of 50 perma- 

 nent trees per acre, his experience mainly being 

 in South India. When we come to Malaya wefind 

 that there is a general consensus of opinion that 

 the number of permanent trees per acre should 

 be 90 to 100, but, as Mr Harrison points out, it 

 is sometimes not deemed advisable to thin out 

 to less than 115 to 120 in view of the inevitable 

 loss which results from storms and diseases. It 

 is suggested in many cases that the estates 

 might on good soils be thinned down to about 

 70 trees per acre. 20 by 20 feet appears to be 

 favoured as the distance for Malaya and Suma- 

 tra by the gentlemen who contributed their 

 views to these columns. 



We do not, therefore, think that on the advice 

 of the men we have named that one can go far 

 wrong in planting 20 by 20 feet apart on good 



