Gums, Resins, 



forming a slight shade for the rubber. 

 The cultivation of the soil will be of the 

 greatest benefit to the growing rubber 

 plants. If no catch crops are to be 

 grown the distance for the rubber plants 

 may be 6 ft. at first, to be thinned out 

 eventually to 18 ft apart. 



Seeds, — The seeds are massed together, 

 and are covered with an orange-coloured 

 flesh. When ripe they drop from the 

 trees, and if left undisturbed numbers 

 of seedlings will soon spring up. It is 

 best, however, to collect them as they 

 fall, and sow them in a seedbed. There 

 should be no delay in sowing them, for 

 they soon lose their power of germin- 

 ating. Professor Olsson-Seffer was in- 

 terested in some experiments to deter- 

 mine the best age at which to collect 

 seeds from the trees. Until the result 

 of these experiments is known, I should 

 advise that seeds should not be sown 

 from trees until they are fully six years 

 old, when the latex has lost its resin. 



Sowing Seed. — The seed-beds should be 

 thoroughly forked and raked until the 

 particles of soil are quite small and fine. 

 The seeds should be lightly pressed down 

 so as to be just covered by the soil, and 

 at a distance of about an inch apart from 

 each other. A thin layer of dry grass 

 may be scattered over the bed, and then 

 a good watering given from a watering- 

 pot with a fine hose. The soil should 

 afterwards be kept only just moist, not 

 too wet, and carefully weeded. When 

 the seedlings are 3 or 4 in. high the soil 

 may be loosened with a fork and the 

 seedlings taken out, and either planted 

 again in boxes at a distance from each 

 other of 3 in., or set out at once in their 

 permanent places in the field. If they 

 can be constantly inspected in the field 

 and kept weeded, and the weather is 

 favourable, it is better to put them out 

 at once ; but if not they may be kept in 

 the boxes until they are 6 or 7 in. nigh, 

 and then transplanted, when they are 

 not so liable to be the worse for any 

 neglect in the open. It is still better to 

 sow the seeds at once, as soon as they 

 fall, in the permanent positions already 

 marked out for them in the field. Three 

 or four may be sown at the stake at 

 about 3 in. from each other. 



Planting out. — If bananas have already 

 been planted during the previous March, 

 the fields should meantime have bee a 

 run over with the plough or cultivator 

 to keep down weeds, and to establish a 

 dust mulch on the surface. The seeds 

 may be sown as they fall, or the young 

 plants may be put out about September, 

 either in the rows between the bananas, 

 so as to be 15 ft. apart when the bananas 

 are removed, or they may be planted 

 each in the centre of four bananas. 



[Jan dart, 1909. 



Thinning out.— The seedlings should 

 be continuously watched and carefully 

 thinned out, leaving at the end of the 

 first year only the most promising one 

 at each stake. If none of the three or 

 four has turned out well, supply from 

 the nursery which had been made for 

 the purpose.— Tropical Life, September, 

 1908, Vol. IV., No. 9. 



THE RUBBER TRADE OP BRAZIL. 



Ceylon rubber producers will be in- 

 terested in a comment which appears 

 in the Board of Trade Journal upon 

 the trade in Brazil. Referring to the 

 ready disposition shown among British 

 capitalists to invest in the acquisition 

 of Brazilian rubber-producing properties, 

 the Journal shows that investments of 

 this nature have not invariably been 

 successful, and advises that such under- 

 takings should be entered into with 

 the greatest circumspection. It is 

 pointed out that the remarkable develop- 

 ment of the rubber trade in Ceylon 

 and the Straits Settlements, as well as 

 in Africa and Mexico, has made a great 

 change in the position, and is likely to 

 change it still further. Up to this time 

 Brazilian producers have apparently 

 attached little importance to possible 

 competition from these sources, but now 

 some among them are beginning to view 

 the matter as fraught with more danger 

 to the interests of their industry than 

 they had supposed. It is even argued 

 that within a period of ten years the 

 practical monopoly of Brazil in this 

 important and increasingly valuable 

 production may be at an end. The 

 Board of Trade commentator says it 

 certainly appears that, other conditions 

 being favourable, the systematic process 

 observed in the countries named, to- 

 gether with the greater cheapness of 

 labour, transport, and other items 

 affecting the industry will place these 

 cultivators in a vastly superior position 

 to those of Brazil, where the expenses 

 in every branch of the industry are 

 on an extremely high scale, and where 

 the risks to health in the process of 

 collection, with other contingencies, 

 constitute a heavy handicap. — Indian 

 Agriculturist, Vol. XXXIII, No. 9. 



CASTILLOA ON THE ISTHMUS 

 OP TEHUANTEPEC. 



By J. L. Hermbssbn, of Chiapas, 

 Mexico. 

 {Continued from page 518.) 

 Much stress has been laid upon the 

 danger, in tapping, of cutting through 

 the cambium layer into the wood ; and 



