and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society,— August, 1910. 173 



cottons appear to be two superior varieties, most 

 suitable for what are at present non-cotton 

 producing tracts, namely, those with a sandy or 

 red soil or with a rainfall heavier than can be 

 borne by indigenous varieties, it is proposed to 

 carry out expeYiments with these on lands fur- 

 nished by the owners in parts of Rajputana near 

 the Western Ghats and, perhaps, Mysore. It is 

 understood that the officers of the Madras Agri- 

 culture Department are to undertake investiga- 

 tions into the Bourbon cultivation in the red 

 soils of their Presidency. (4) The re-establish- 

 ment of superior varieties in Kathiawar and 

 other parts which substituted inferior drought 

 resisting cottons during the famine year of 

 1899-1900.— M. Mail, July 15. 



RUBBER IN SOUTH INDIA. 



NORMAL EXTENSIONS: EXCELLENT 

 TAPPING RESULTS. 

 Ms. H. Drummond Deane's Views. 



Mr H Drummond Deane, who arrived in 

 Colombo last month from Tuticorin, after a 

 visit to the rubber properties in South India in 

 which he is interested, had some interesting parti- 

 culars about South Indian rubber to give to 

 our representative. 



Extensions. 



Asked whether there had been any recent 

 large extensions he said the acreage was increas- 

 ing normally. The Boyce estate, of which his 

 son was in charge, which had 450 acres of rub- 

 ber and five or six hundred acres of waste land, 

 had been taken into the Malayalam Co., which 

 would be sure to open up the waste acreage. 

 The Mundakayam district, he believed, would 

 have 9,000 acres by the end of the planting sea- 

 son. It bad 8,500 last year and next year, he 

 thought, it would have 10,000. All the rubber 

 was doing very well. 



Yields. 



Tapping was commencing on El Dorado, Yen- 

 daar, and the Travancore Rubber Estates Co.'s 

 property. Some seven or eight hundred acres 

 altogether were being tapped. They expected 

 to get 7,000 lb. of rubber on El Dorado, from 

 about 200 of its 950 acres, including 40 acres six 

 years old. He thought they would get nearer 

 12,000 lb., they could easily get it if they had the 

 labour. From Yendaar, with about the same 

 acreage, they expected to get about the same. 

 He thought that the Travancore Rubber Es- 

 tates Co., from its 1,000 acres, about 240 of which 

 were being tapped, would give a yield of about 

 5,00ulb. as it was younger rubber. The follow- 

 ing year they would, of course, all jump tremen- 

 dously as it was at present mostly five-year old 

 rubber and the present year's tapping might be 

 described as more or loss experimental. They 

 were not tapping every tree and they were train- 

 ing their labour force. 



The Labour Question. 



How is the cultivation progressing over there, 

 Mr Deane ? 



Everything is doing fairly well. The places 

 are fairly clean and labour on the whole has 

 been fairly plentiful. I do not think we shall 

 have any difficulty with regard to the supply of 

 labour. We have to compete with Ceylon and the 



Federated MalayStates. The latter give 10 annas 

 a day. and promise free blankets, free passages, 

 and all sorts of allowances, and we only give six. 

 Colombo Agents Blamed. 



Do you thiuk there will continue to be a good 

 flow of labour to Ceylon, as at present? 



Yes. I always think that estates managed by 

 people who thoroughly understand their labour 

 force never have any great difficulty really. It 

 is the Colombo agents who are the curse of 

 the whole thing. They start a company, a very 

 easy thing to do on paper, and say to their 

 superintendent, "You must open a thousand 

 acres," or whatever the case may be, "you must 

 get coolies somewhere, never mind where you 

 get them from." Superintendents are there- 

 fore obliged to do things which they would not 

 otherwise do if they had a free hand. The 

 steady old planters who have been here for years 

 and years and have their own places have not 

 anything like the R30 limit. They don't say 

 anything about it, they don't shout. The 

 people who shout are the people who have to get 

 their labour at any price or lose thei r billets. Even 

 that state of affairs, however, will adjust itself. 



The Value of Southern India Estates. 



Referring to the Malayalam Co. Mr. 

 Drummond Deane said it had recently 

 bought several fine estates, paying for them 

 in shares so that although they got them quite 

 cheaply judged by the par value of the shares 

 the vendors received full value as the shares 

 stood at a high premium, As a result of these 

 purchases the cost of the whole cultivated acre- 

 age of the Malayalam Company per acre had 

 been reduced to under £28, nearer £27 in fact. 

 That was marvellously cheap because they gen- 

 erally reckoned that rubber could not be brought 

 into bearing for under £20 to £22 and the tea 

 cost £30, and the Malayalam Company had some 

 magnificent tea. 



Continuing his remarks Mr Drummond Deane 

 said : — Rubber properties in South India are 

 very valuable. I think that the average rubber 

 properties in Travancore and Cochin undeniably 

 have far better soil and show better growth than 

 similar properties in Ceylon. We can produce 

 rubber quite as cheaply and South Indian rub- 

 ber has a very good future before it, as good a 

 future as any other rubber. 



The Stagbkook Properties. 



In conclusion the speaker said that he and 

 others interested in the Stagbrook Rubber Co., 

 although quite pleased with the properties, were 

 very dissatisfied with the last Directors' report. 



AUSTRALIAN CUSTOMS DUTY ON 

 "NUBUR." 



A copy of a notice issued by the Common- 

 wealth Department of Trade and Customs on 

 11th May, 1910, has been received directing that 

 "nubur," being a preparation of the stearine 

 of coconut oil, shall, on importation into the 

 Commonwealth, be charged with the same duty 

 as that leviable on "Cocoa Butter," viz .— 

 Under the General Tariff, if d per lb. ; Under 

 United Kingdou, lid per lb. — Board of Trudo 

 Journal, Juae 30. 



