and Magazine of Ike Ceylon Agricultural Society. 



299 



15 Burghers, 140 Sinhalese,! 32 Tamils, 20 Moor- 

 men or Malays, 17 Chetties and 3 Parsees; and 

 they own between them some 82,000 acres of 

 which 42,350 are in cultivation. Of course, 

 this is altogether apart; from the very exten- 

 sive ownership of members of nearly all those 

 races of coconut, other Palm, Fruit, Vegetable 

 and Rice-growing properties in the lowcountry 

 — over large expanses of which there is scarcely 

 a single representative of the colonist class. 

 As regards the Planting industry in tea, &c, 

 we believe our calculation, made many years 

 ago, still holds good that from every acre fully 

 cultivated, as many as four to five natives of 

 Ceylon or Southern India derive their means 

 of subsistence. A cooly an acre for estate 

 purposes is the common reckoning; but most of 

 these coolies provide for dependents in children 

 and old people, and then we have to count in 

 the artificers, domestic servants, cartmen, 

 boutique-keepers, railway men, all who work 

 in tea stores or tea offices in Colombo. Sweep 

 utterly away th^ tea and rubber-growing in- 

 dustry of Ceylon— and quite two or three mil- 

 lions of people (big and little, old and young) 

 in Ceylon and Southern India would find their 

 means of subsistence disappear ! We have only 

 to think of the scores, almost hundreds of towns 

 and villages which have, come into existence 

 in our ;" hill-country" since old George Bird, 

 Wm. Rudd, Robert Boyd Tytler and their 

 confreres first felled forest for coffee some 70 

 to 80 years ago ! 



RUBBER iH THE SANDWICH ISLANDS 



Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station. 



In the summer of 1906 attention was called to 

 the existence of two groves of rubber trees on 

 the island of Kauai, each containing about 100 

 individual trees. One of these groves, at Koloa, 

 was planted in 1893, and seed from these trees 

 was planted at Lihue in 1899, so that the two 

 groves are, respectively, 13 and 7 years old. 

 These trees are of the Ceara variety, which is 

 being extensively planted in these islands. It 

 was at once suggested by some of the planters 

 interested in rubber cultivation that this 

 station make 



a tapping experiment 



to determine the amount and quality of rubber 

 obtainable. As this station had no funds, work 

 was not begun until January 1, 1907, when the 

 B P Bishop estate (Limited), and Mr George N 

 Wilcox each contributed §200 to assist the work. 



The first work done was on a few isolated 

 trees from 4 to 10 years old on the experiment 

 station grounds in Honolulu. Three months 

 were devoted to laboratory investigations in re- 

 gard to the behaviour of the latex under different 

 coagulents. Some preliminary work was done 

 to determine the form of tapping tools and me- 

 thod of tapping. 



In April, a satisfactory method having been 

 workecf out, the special agent, accompanied by 

 Mr Q Q Bradford, farm foreman, went to Lihue. 

 The management of the Lihue plantation lent 



the station hearty cooperation, erecting a small 

 shed in the rubber grove and providing enter- 

 tainment and horses for the use of our foreman. 

 The Lihue grove of 7-year-old trees occupies ar. 

 old taro patch in the bottom of a gulch. Sur- 

 rounding it is a planted forest several hundred 

 acres in extent. A living stream of water runs 

 through the middle of the grove and the land is 

 quite swampy. The trees vary greatly in size, 

 from (j inches to 30 inches in circumference of 

 trunk, at 3 feet from the ground. No care ap- 

 pears to have been given the trees during the 

 entire period of their growth Some of the 

 trees show a clear, straight trunk, 30 feet in 

 height ; others fork near the base. It was found 

 that only about 70 trees out of the full 

 number, 110, were suitable for tapping, owing 

 to their size or shape. 



a set of rubber tapping knives such as 



AUli USED IN CEYLON 



for work on Hevea had been purchased, but it 

 was soon found that these were entirely unsuited 

 for thin-barked trees like the Ceara, and con- 

 siderable work was devoted to making a form 

 of knife which would be satisfactory. After 

 many experiments the system of tapping de- 

 cided upon was the half herringbone, with one 

 vertical cut and laterals a foot apart extending 

 half around the tree. Whore the full herring- 

 bone system was employed it was found that 

 only the uppermost and lowest laterals yielded 

 a full flow of latex. Two experiments were out- 

 lined, one to tap every day, the other alternate 

 days. 



The Ceara latex coagulates almost at once 

 when the channels are made. We therefore 

 adopted a method of trickling water over the 

 cut surfaces, and soon found an addition of am- 

 monia retarded coagulation and continued the 

 flow until the feeding area was practically ex- 

 hausted. The mixed water and latex is col- 

 lected at the foot of the tree. The tapping was 

 begun at 5 o'clock a.m. Two trees averaging 28 

 inches in circumference were tapped for nine 

 consecutive days, with the full herringbone 

 system from the ground to 5 feet, there being 

 five laterals 1 foot apart. These two trees 

 yielded 8 ounces of dry rubber in nine days. 

 Two other trees were tapped on alternate days 

 for a period of two weeks and yielded 4 ounces 

 of dry rubber in that time. 



Work was begun at Koloa in May. The trees, 

 44 inches in circumference and 13 years old at 

 the time tapping was begun, were almost bare 

 of leaves, the resting period being about ended. 

 Two of these 13-year-old trees were tapped every 

 day for nine days and yielded 12i ounces of dry 

 rubber. It was not considered advisable to tap 

 alternate days on account of the leafless con- 

 dition of the grove. 



In June a number of 4-year-old trees at Koloa, 

 averaging 19 inches in circumference, were 

 tapped every day for 9 days, yielding only i 

 ounce of dry rubber. These trees were entirely 

 bare. 



This tapping work has been very sugges- 

 tive, and there are many points that have arisen 

 which we shall endeavour to work out during 

 the coming year. The Ceara trees seom to be 

 very susceptible to the atmospheric and other 



