and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society. 



305 



TAPIOCA CULTIVATION. 



Interesting Information foe Planters. 



Practicability of Combining with Para Rubber. 



(Written for the " Straits Times" by E. Mathicu.) 



The importance, for the planter of Para Rub- 

 ber, coconut or of any other culture of slow 

 growth, of finding a product which will give him a 

 prompt return and one remunerative enough to 

 allow him to use his land during the first years 

 of unproductiveness, and to reimburse himself, 

 in part at least, of the capital which he has 

 sunk in it, is self-evident. Prom past experi- 

 ence, we see that, of the three staples — gam bier, 

 pepper and tapioca— which have been culti- 

 vated on a large scale in Malaya by the Chinese, 

 the last is the only one which has, throughout, 

 maintained itself. Whereas the fluctuations of 

 the market and over-production seem to have 

 at times discouraged the planter of pepper and 

 gambier, the planter of tapioca has steadily held 

 his ground and more than made the two ends 

 meet, while in good years, when prices rule 

 high, he piles up money. It is, therefore, quite 

 natural that our attention should be drawn 

 anew to the cultivation of tapioca and to the prac- 

 ticability of combining it with Para Rubber, 

 Tapioca has a bad name ; and it is true that 

 the sorry aspect of an abandoned field of 

 manioc, overgrown with lalang is not, at first 

 sight, a tempting one. It is true, also, that 

 Government does not welcome its cultivation, 

 and will only tolerate it as a catch-crop, for a 

 permanent cultivation, and that only on condition 

 that not more than three crops shall be taken 

 from the ground. It is, in fact, labelled a "rob- 

 ber" crop, namely, a crop which takes away all, 

 leaving nothing behind, and we can well under- 

 stand the little enthusiasm of the majority of 

 planters to take up a cultivation reputedly ex- 

 hausting and baneful to the land. 



Changed Opinions. 

 In my Planter's Manual, I have, somewhat 

 hastily, adopted the same view, and been led 

 by it to depreciate tapioca as a catch-crop for 

 rubber. At that time (1906) it was true, and, 

 until quite recently, the difficulty of recruiting 

 labour made it quite idle, in my opinion, to 

 discuss the question of catch-crops of any kind. 

 Planters had not even enough hands for the 

 requirements of upkeep and weeding of their 

 rubber, and it is well-known that some estates 

 have suffered severely from this scarcity. 

 Since then, however, thanks to the happy 

 action of Government, these difficulties are 

 being overcome gradually, and the steady cur- 

 rent of immigration which has now set in 

 from India seems likely to meet the require- 

 ments of the future. This great obstacle to 

 the adoption of catch-crops for rubber 

 having been disposed of, it has occurred to 

 me that the time has come to look into the 

 question more closely ; and, in view of the 

 fact that tapioca cultivation is now, on a 

 fairly extensive scale, carried on in Malacca 

 at Diamond Jubilee Estate and at Bukit 

 Asahan, and in Johore at the Jementah Estate, 

 I propose to examine " what there is in it.'' 



Moreover, it appears to me that a gap is 

 to be filled here, for, notwithstanding that 

 manioc is grown at the four corners of the 

 globe, there is, perhaps, not one cultivation 

 for which the sources of information are so 

 meagre. The United States Department of 

 Agriculture has, I believe, made exhaustive 

 research on the subject, and the Government 

 of Jamaica has also made instructive experi- 

 ments ; but we do not know their results. 

 I would single out, however, a report which 

 appeared in the Agricultural Review of the 

 Philippines under the name of Mr E Cope- 

 land, and which is replete with useful informa- 

 tion, based upon accurate observation and know- 

 ledge of the subject. I have drawn largely for 

 facts and figures on Mr Copeland's report. 



Sweet and Bitter Varieties. 

 Tapioca (Manihot utilissima), obi cayn in 

 Malay, is a shrub of the family of Euphor- 

 biacoea, which include also Ceara Rubber 

 (Manihot Glaziovii), native of Tropical America, 

 which was introduced in India and Malaya by 

 the early Portuguese. Like all the plants which 

 are largely cultivated over wide and varied 

 areas, manioc, to adopt its common name, offers 

 a great many varieties, which have been classed 

 into two great groups of bitter and stveet. But 

 in reality, these varieties have but little fixity, 

 and they aie rather the result of surroundings, 

 their character varying with climate, soil and 

 the cultivation given them. Certain varieties, 

 sweet in Jamaica, have become bitter in Florida, 

 while bitter varieties have lost of their bitter- 

 ness by transplantation to new countries. This 

 bitterness is due to a poisonous juice, white 

 and milky, found in the thick skin of the roots, 

 which is no other than cyanhydric acid, known 

 more commonly under the name of prussic acid, 

 the active principle found in the leaves of the 

 laurel tree and in many other plants. Mr B J 

 Eaton, Government Analyst of the F M S, has 

 obtained it from the seeds, the leaves and twigs 

 of the Para Rubber tree. The acid is also found 

 in fleshy parts of the roots, but in much 

 reduced quantities and volatility causes its com- 

 plete elimination during the successive pro- 

 cesses of washing, drying or heating which the 

 roots undergo during their conversion into 

 starch either for domestic use or industrial use. 

 Some varieties, also, are more early than others, 

 and Mr, Moorhouse. Manager of Diamond 

 Jubilee Estate, Malacca, tells us of one variety 

 which attains maturity in ten months, but he 

 does not give us the yield in starch. 



Propagation. 

 Although manioc often seeds, the mode of 

 propagation universally adopted is by slips 

 obtained by cutting into sections the stems 

 of the preceding crop. These slips, which 

 should be taken preferably from the lower 

 to the middle part of the stem, and be 

 from 6 to 8 inches long, are stuck in the 

 ground, slanting, in lines as described later ; 

 the undeveloped buds or so-called eyes will soon 

 throw out shoots which develop into long, fleshy 

 tubercles which form the roots of the plant. 



Roots or Tubercles. — The roots are the 

 useful part of the plant. From them is ob- 

 tained, in a ratio of one-fifth or even one- 

 quarter of their weight, that excellent farina 



