and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society.— June, 1910. 555 



F.M.S. PLANTERS' CONFERENCE 

 ON RUBBER. 



Mr. W J Gallagher, Director ot Agriculture, 

 was voted to the chair at the Planters' Conference 

 in the Masonic Hall on Sunday morning, which 

 was attended by about 40, including leading 

 planters in the Federated Malay States. 

 Tappable Girth. 

 The Chairman— was about to open the dis- 

 cussion on the first item on the agenda, the 

 girth at which to commence tapping, when Mr 

 A B Lake proposed that the press be excluded 

 from the meeting. Mr C E S Baxendale ob- 

 jected, saying he thought the representative 

 of the press should be allowed to remain. The 

 matter having been put to the vote, it was de- 

 cided, by a majority of one, not to exclude the 

 press, and the discussion was resumed. 



The Chairman — said that most of the written 

 replies he had received favoured a girth of 18 

 inches, at three feet from the ground, as the 

 best time to begin tapping. 



Mr. Baxendale — said that, from his own ex- 

 perience, 18 inches was a fair girth to start 

 at. If 65 per cent of the trees in an area were 

 tappable at 18 inches, it would probably be 

 worth tapping them ; but it would depend on 

 the age of the trees. He did not think that 

 tapping increased the growth of trees, on the 

 contrary he thought that the growth of the tree 

 was retarded while tapping was in progress. 



Mr Duncan— thought the girth at which tap- 

 ping could be begun should be determined more 

 by the possibility of tapping well than by any 

 particular size. Personally he should not like 

 to start tapping trees of small girth but, having 

 80 per cent of trees of that girth, he would not 

 mind tapping down to 16 inches. He did not 

 think the quality of rubber from young and old 

 trees differed very much. If a tree was big 

 enough to be tapped without any danger, it 

 should be tapped. 



The Chairman — said the general opinion 

 seemed to be that age should not be considered 

 but girth alone and 18 inches at a height of 3 

 feet from the ground was generally favoured. 



Mr E V Carey— asked if anybody could say 

 whether small trees were injured by tapping. 



The Chairman — said only two answers had 

 been received under this head : one said it in- 

 creased growth, the other that no harm resulted 

 if the methods were good. 



Mr M Cumming — said that he had known trees 

 badly tapped which had had their growth 

 retarded for several years. 



The Chairman— said he thought the meeting 

 was in favour of tapping at 18 inches girth 

 three feet from the ground and that it agreed 

 that if a tree were tapped well there was no 

 deleterious effect. 



Tapping Systems. 

 The next pont discussed was the best system 

 of tapping. In the written answers sent in the 

 Chairman said five correspondents preferred 

 tapping two opposte quarters, one suggested one 

 quarter in one year and another said, for con- 

 venience of working, he preferred two adjacent 

 quarters, though, apart from convenience, he 

 would prefer two opposite quarters, 



Mr F G Harvey— thought that opposite 

 quarters was the best system but the objection 

 was that two cups were required. 



Mr W H Trotter— said the only plan he 

 knew was to take one line up and come down 

 the next line and use one cup in the morning and 

 the same cup in the evening on the other side. 



Mr Gumming— said there was one point on 

 which people were pretty well satisfied and that 

 was that, on tapping renewed bark, the bark 

 was got through more quickly than the first time. 



The Chairman— said he should have some 

 figures available in the near future on influence 

 of distance between the cuts, as he thought the 

 question was an important one. He then traced 

 a diagram on the blackboard to show that the fur- 

 ther apart the cuts were made, the less distance 

 the material to renew the cut away bark had to 

 move in a transverse direction — its course more 

 nearly approached a line parallel to the axis of 

 the tree. Turning to the question of 

 which period op the day was best for tapping, 

 the Chairman said the answers he had received 

 varied from 5 to 10 a.m. and 6.30 to 9.30 a.m. 

 After some remarks from those present he said 

 that it was, like other questions, a subject of 

 compromise. Planters might know what was the 

 ideal, but they had to fit it in with special cir- 

 cumstances in which they found themselves. 



On the question of whether it was 



BEST TO TAP EVERY DAY OR EVERY OTHER DAY, 



Mr. A J Campbell, Superintendent of Experi- 

 mental Plantations, said that, as the result of 

 experiments which he had carried out over a 

 period of six months, he found that, in the first 

 three months, tapping on alternate days gave 

 slightly the best results, but during the second 

 three months, tapping every day gave the big- 

 ger yield. 



Mr. Cumming— said he experimented with 

 daily tapping for six months and had to return 

 to tapping every other day. 



Mr. A. J Fox— stated that has experience 

 was against daily tapping. 



Mr. C Burn-Murdoch— said he found daily 

 tapping yielded very little more latex than tap- 

 ping on alternate days, 



Mr. A. B. Lake — thought the result of the 

 experiments would depend on the character of 

 the land. 



Some discussion ensued as to the amount 

 of labour required by the two systems, in 

 the course of which the Chairman said that the 

 number of cuts — the amount of bark removed — 

 at the end of two days was the same under both 

 systems but the coolie walked twice the distance 

 and used twice as many cups in every-day tap- 

 ping as in tapping on alternate days. In con- 

 clusion he said that he thought a majority 

 favoured tapping on alternate days, but he re- 

 minded his audience that there were two ways 

 of looking at this as at other problems; the best 

 way, and the most practicable way under the 

 particular conditions to be faced. 



Variations in Yield. 

 In opening the discussion on "variations in 

 yield " the Chairman drew on the blackboard a 

 sketch of a chart shewing the monthly variations 

 in yield. 



