564 



The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



rays made of wicker-work, (5) sulphur powder 

 and (6) coconut oil. 



4. Bleaching Room.— This should be 12' x 12' 

 x 12' with three horizontal tiers of shelves arran- 

 ged at a height of three feet from each other : 

 these are usually made of split bamboos. The 

 shelves support small shallow baskets of nine- 

 inch diameter, placed close to, or upon each 

 other. The room is provided with one door and 

 at one end with a hearth. Tha latter is a simple 

 niche in the wall of the room opening from out- 

 side and situated close to the floor. The niche 

 is two feet high and about as much wide, built 

 in the thickness of the wall with a portion pro- 

 jecting inside the room, The inner projection 

 holds on it an irom basket which is consequently 

 seen only in the room. The basket can be heated 

 from below by igniting a tire in the niche out- 

 side. The sulphur which is placed in the basket 

 gets heated and fumes issue which fill the whole 

 air-space in the room. The basket gets the direct 

 heat and no smoke or heat escapes into the room 

 from the hearth. The ceiling of the room is 

 made of spilt bamboos and plastered with mud 

 and tiled, making it more or less air-proof. The 

 bleaching rooms in some establishments are 

 often double the length given with two hearths 

 and one door. 



5. Washing Tanks — These are 6' x 6' x 6 

 built of masonry and lined with cement and hold 

 the necessary quantity of water. 



6. Lime Cisterns.— These are of the sam 

 dimensions as the washing tanks. One or tw° 

 spare cisterns are often provided at each plac e 

 of manufacture. 



7. Coeing Operation. — The green ginger on 

 receipt is first put into the washing tank in 

 water. Two or three men tread the material 

 under foot. The adhering mud is washed otf 

 and becomes mixed with the water. During the 

 treading, the outer skin of the ginger is rubbed 

 off. The water is removed and renewed accord- 

 ing to necessity. 



Next the cleaned and decorticated ginger i 

 transferred to the lime cistern. This contains 

 lime water of the consistency usually considered 

 sufficient for white-washing walls. Here the 

 ginger remains for sometime during which it is 

 stirred once or twice to effect equal soaking 

 and permeation of lime into it. Afterwards 

 the roots are transferred to small shallow trays. 

 These latter are made of wicker-work and are 

 9 to 10 inches in diameter. The trays are taken 

 to the bleaching room and placed on the shelves 

 mentioned above. One room of the standard 

 dimensions holds 300 of these trays, a hundred 

 going to each shelf and each basket taking 5 lb. 

 of green ginger. Seven pounds of powdered 

 sulphur is put on the pan and fire started from 

 outside. The door is now closed and remains so 

 for four hours. The ginger absorbs all the fumes 

 produced by the vaporisation of the sulphur in 

 the paD, Afterwards, the door is left open for a 

 short time and then the trays are taken out and 

 the ginger is spread out in the sun for drying. 

 The fumigating operation is done again the next 

 day and repeated a third time the day after, the 

 material being dipped in lime water before every 



fumigation. Eight and nine pounds of sulphur 

 are used for a second and third bleaching aud 

 the exposure to the fumes inside the room is 

 twelve and six hours respectively. The ginger 

 is dried in the sun before each successive fumi- 

 gation. It is said that, if liming is neglected 

 before the first fumigation, it lowers the quality 

 of the article. Sulphur can be had at a cost of 

 from R40 to R45 per maund and the total cost 

 of bleaching is R4-8 only per candy of 6001b. 



8. Precautions. — The fumes of sulphur are 

 poisonous and choke the breath of persons who 

 inadvertently go into the room after opening it. 

 The doors should be kept open for a few hours 

 after the required interval of fumigation is over 

 in order to let out the remnant of sulphur vapour 

 into the atmosphere outside. Coolies can get in 

 afterwards to take out the baskets. These men 

 smear their bodies with coconut-oil to prevent 

 injury to their skin both by sulphur vapour and 

 lime-water spatterings. 



H. E. Houghton, 



P. RAJARATNA MUDALIYAR, 



Joint Honorary Secretaries, 



RUBBER IN SARAWAK. 



The latest official report from Sarawak British 

 Nortn Borneo, to the Colonial Office, states 

 that the 'planting' of Para rubber is now being 

 actively carried on by the people in most of the 

 districts, and that high prices have been ob- 

 tained for all the parcels exported. The notion 

 that Dyaks and Malays are not capable of tap- 

 ping the trees and producing rubber in a proper 

 form for market is said to be a mistaken one, 

 and no difficulty in this respect is anticipated. 



It is felt to be only natural that some Euro- 

 pean companies should have tried to discourage 

 the native inhabitants in the cultivation of Para, 

 but the Rajah's chief desire is that the natives 

 should cultivate it as largely as they can, so that 

 they may derive all the benefits possible from 

 the prosecution of the industry. 



The rubber hitherto produced by native labour 

 has not, the report in question states, been of 

 quite so good a quality as that produced by 

 machinery, but this defect is being largely reme- 

 died by the introduction of improved methods. 

 The areas now being planted with Para are ex- 

 pected to develop into one of the chief mainstays 

 of the population. The natives pay nothing for 

 the land, which if abandoned or neglected would 

 revert to the State. 



It is now becoming generally known that the 

 jungles of Borneo abound in wild guttas of dif- 

 ferent kinds. Gutta rien or durian, which has 

 been extensively used as covering for submarine 

 cables, stands at the head of the list, and, accor- 

 ding to the most reliable reports, it is the only 

 cover for cables that does not deteriorate in salt 

 water. Worked as they are at present, the 

 jungles of Borneo have probably supplied more 

 of this valuable gutta than any other country. 

 —H & C Mail, Oct. 28. 



