Dec. 1906.] 



451 



Saps and Exudations. 



H. E. the Governor : — Is there anybody present who can give ns information 

 as to the difference in the proportion of caoutchouc in the extraction from wild 

 rubber trees, which has been going on for a good mauy years, certainly in the 

 Amazon Valley, I do not think quite so long in Africa? But I think rubber extrac 

 tion from wild trees— the very old trees— has been going on year after year for a good 

 number of years, f do not know whether any gentleman here is able to to tell us 

 whether the proportion of caoutchouc in the latex extracted from those old trees it 

 becoming less. 



Mr. Bamber :— I do not know whether they renew the bark like we have to 

 do here, or whether they tap the same trees year after year ; but I doubt whether 

 they measure the latex or weigh the rubber. Apparently they simply dip their 

 paddles and smoke it. 



METHODS OF PLANTING. 



Mr. Wright:— Mr. Bamber mentioned the distance of 15 x 20 feet which I 

 have adopter! in my calculations. I should like to take this opportunity of impress- 

 ing upon planters that I (personally) am not in favour of close-planting, neither am I 

 in favour of simple wide-plantiug, the former I consider wrong in principle and the 

 latter wasteful. Elsewhere I discussed one system — close planting and thinning— out, 

 and gave the reasons for and against such a system ; though this system is one which 

 must be adopted on most of the estates already planted in Ceylon, there are other 

 systems such as wide planting and interplauting with cacao, tea, coffee, camphor, 

 etc. ; wide planting and interplauting with arborescent and herbaceous green 

 manures, etc. I am not in favour of originally planting Para rubber plants at a 

 distance which is required when the trees are thirty years old, but am more in favour 

 of interplanting with rubber trees or other products, and subsequently thinning- 

 out, in order to gradually give the remaining rubber trees the increased area 

 which their age and development demand. Para rubber trees are unique 

 in that they give a marketable product in their fourth or fifth years, and 

 yet go on increasing in size until they are over 30 years old. We have no 

 product like it in Csylon and so far satisfactory results have been obtained 

 by thinning-out of cacao, tea, or rubber trees on well-known and highly- 

 valued rubber estates in Ceylon and elsewhere. The rate of root growth of 

 Para rubber trees, at Peradeniya, was estimated to be approximately one foot 

 radially per year by me; it was also pointed out that this referred to the com- 

 pact root areas and not to individual roots which often run out for over four or 

 five feet in a couple of years. In some districts the roots have not even grown at 

 that rate, and in others I believe they have grown more rapidly. My remarks were 

 based on the apparent freedom of the soil from roots, observed when carrying out 

 trench-manuring work; the roots were never very abundant one foot from one- 

 year-old and two feet from two-year-old Para rubber trees at Peradeniya. I shall be 

 glad to be corrected, especially by the assurance of a more rapid rate of growth for 

 our rubber trees ; I trust that my statement here will remove any doubt as to my 

 opinion being fixed on the question of distance or method of planting Para rubber 

 trees. 



BRAZILIAN METHODS OP PREPARATION. 



Dr. CHRISTY said there was one point in regard to that subject which was 

 rather interesting, and he noticed Mr. Wright gave a warning on the subject. That 

 was the difference between the two methods of Brazilian preparation and that used 

 here. The Brazilian method is purely one of evaporation. It seemed to him to be a 

 point which was of great interest, and that it was possible it might be found that the 

 success of the rubber industry might depend upon the method of coagulation. No 

 method at present invented turned out the rubber in the same way as Brazil, and it 



