and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society. 



395 



are at present there is no likelihood of such 

 things happening, and by the time they do 

 plantation rubber will have relegated Lhe forest 

 product to a very secondary position, frora 

 which it is doubtful whether it will ever recover. 



To cease planting rubber, then in the Middle 

 East merely because in twelve years' time 

 there is a prospect of the output from existing 

 plantations equalling the present world's con- 

 sumption of the commodity, appears to us to 

 savour of overcaution, especially when it is 

 remembered that with rubber selling at only 

 2s. per lb. the plantation product would 

 realise a profit of from 75 to 1U0 per cent. 

 But we would urge that planting from now 

 onwards should be undertaken with a due res- 

 pect to the fact that 



HEVEA IS A TREE AND NOT A SHRUB. 



In other words, all new planting should 

 be wide planting, and we feel certain that the 

 trees on such properties will not only when 

 mature give better annual yields, but will be 

 assured of much longer life. We are well aware 

 that such a suggestion will meet with but scant 

 support from the individual who is busy or 

 intends to be busy crowding as many trees 

 as he can into his acreage with the idea of 

 selling his property as a rubber proposition 

 to the investing public. The public, however, 

 are by this time fairly wide awake when rub- 

 ber is talked about, and the investor may 

 depend upon this journal doing its utmost 

 to keep him out of any flotation which bases 

 its claims for support merely upon the huge 

 number of trees which have been planted to 

 the acre. The matter is one which we trust 

 will be discussed at the forthcoming exhibi- 

 tion at Olympia, and definite expressions of 

 opinion from recognised authorities in the 

 planting industry obtained, so that these same 

 opinions— which we venture to think will not 

 differ materially from our own — may be duly 

 recoided in order that he who plants may read. 

 — Financier, Aug. 21. 



RUBBER CANKER IN JAVA. 



ALARMIST VIEWS OF AN OUTBREAK. 



Some uneasiness has been aroused of late 

 among rubber planters in Java by the appear- 

 ance of canker in some of the Hevea trees, and 

 the more timid among them recall expert 

 opinion that Gutta Rambong, an indigenous 

 kind, should have the preference over the 

 foreign variety. The Batavia Nieuwsblad favours 

 the counsel of despair, which urges the rooting 

 out of the Hevea and the replacing of it by the 

 Rambong. Mr Cleveland Harington wrote to 

 the Batavia Nieuwsbltd protesting strongly 

 against these alarmist viows, and asserted from 

 personal knowledge that canker was not at 

 all common on rubber estates in Java. It had 

 also been noticed in Ceylon and the F.M.S., 

 but was not thought much of by planters. He 

 pointed out that such alarmist statements would 

 impair the good name which Java ha3 among 

 capitalists in foreign lands for rubber invest- 

 ment. Mr Harington also shows that planters 

 from the Straits and Ceylon, who had visited 

 Java, have nothing but praise for the rubber 

 plantations there. Such is the confidence of 



British capitalists in .lava rubber that they 

 have invested twenty millions of guilders in 

 that line of planting enterprisa in the island. 

 Mr Harington had just returned from Deli, 

 where planters have every faith in Hevea, and 

 had rooted out the Ficus or Rambong to make 

 room for it on many estates. He had not found 

 a single trace of canker in Deli, and plauters 

 had never met with it so far, so he was told. 



The Sumatra Post ridicules the alarmists, and 

 shovvs that there need be no uneasiness about 

 rubber canker in that quarter. There is hardly 

 any signs of it ou the estates. Mr V Ris, the 

 bead manager of the United iierdang (Sumatra) 

 Rubber Plantations Company, assured that 

 journal that, on one of the letter's estates he 

 examined 120,000 Hevea trees from two to three 

 years old and found that only about 0'4 per 

 cent, of them had any disease at all. Of these, 

 very few indeed bore the marks of canker. 

 Other planters have confirmed the experience. 

 So far, in Duli, Rambong has no chance of 

 displacing Hevea. — Straits Times, August 18th. 



TREiTMENT OF CANKERED TREES. 



A planter of long experience has dealt, in the 

 Sumatra Post, a heavy blow at the rubber 

 canker scare He assures that journal that, in 

 East Sumatra, canker seldom shows itself and 

 does but little harm. It is marked out easily 

 and all danger can be removed readily. A 

 blackish moist spot on a tree betokens an attack 

 of canker. The spot must be at once cut out, and 

 the tree disinfected with carbolineum. This 

 checks the disease at once and there is no 

 danger of the tree dying. The tree will only 

 die in case the disease is allowed to go on with- 

 out hindrance. Some years ago, the above- 

 mentioned planter treated a cankered tree in 

 this way and wrought a thorough cure. In his 

 opinion, root disease is of more importance 

 to planters. This is best dealt with by dig- 

 ging out the soil round the tree to a great 

 depth and by disinfecting the ground. — Straits 

 Times, Aug. 22. 



RUBBER PLANTING IN BURMAH, 



THE VALUE OF PROTECTIVE BELTS, 



Tavoy, Burmah, Aug. 21st. 



Dear Sir, — With reference to my letter of 

 the 29th May, which was published in the July 

 Tropic I Agriculturist, please allow me to make 

 a correction. In the last line but four read 

 "hill contours" not " hill centres '' as printed. 

 Rightly or wrongly I do not stump my 2 and 

 3 year-old plants when putting out in the field. 

 I would like to add to my former letter 

 that these large supplies, when put out in the 

 older fields where there are pronounced hedges, 

 so to speak, of secondary growth, after losing 

 their leaves (and many do not even do this), 

 put on strong growth from the top ; whereas 

 about 70 per cent, of the same aged plants, 

 planted in new clearings where there are, of 

 course, no protective belts, die back one, two 

 or more feet before sending up shoots. 



This I attribute to the protection afforded 

 frora wind and sun, in the inevitable breaks 

 which occur in the monsoon, by the protective 

 side growth.— Yours truly, 



J. G. F. MARSHALL. 



