Dec. 1906.] 



463 



Saps and Exudations. 



THE DEMONSTRATION. 



The party then left the " lecture room " and proceeded to the oldest trees 

 in the gardens. The largest tree was measured by our enthusiastic visitors from 

 India and the Federated Malay States, and showed a girth at 4 feet from the 

 ground of 107i inches. 



Mr. Parkinson remarked that the largest tree he had seen in the Federated 

 Malay States was 103 inches. 



Mr. Wright :— What age ? 



Mr. Parkinson :— 22 years. 



Mr. Wright then pointed out a tree which had been tapped ten or twelve 

 years ago. It was one of those, he said, which had given an average yield of 1| lb. 

 per year for a period of nine years. The bark of the tree had expanded and become 

 very gnarled. 



Mr. Parkinson :— What system was it tapped on ? 



Mr. Wright :— It was tapped on the V system. Of course, it could be done 

 much better now than then. 



Mr. Devitt (Mysore) :— Could you tap it now ? 



Mr. Wright :— Yes, but it would be difficult to get an even line on the bark. 

 Dr. Lehmann — How long is it since it has been tapped '? 



Mr. Wright— Not since Dr. Trimen's time, I think. [The trees that were 

 then tapped, it Avas pointed out, were tapped rather high.] He said the trees in this 

 group were allot' the same age, but had not been equally treated. He did not think 

 they would be able to tap higher than 6 ft., once they got their 250,000 acres in 

 bearing. 



Mr. Parkinson pointed out that trees with thick stems such as these trees, 

 branching off in forks at the top, were very liable to be split in two by the wind. 



AN INTERESTING EXPERIMENT. 



Proceeding round the garden the party came to a Para rubber tree with the 

 top cut off. " You see here," said Mr. Wright, " rather a curious specimen of a Para 

 rubber tree. We deliberately cut off the top of that tree to see whether it would 

 throw out suckers and survive. The top was cut off in January this year, and you 

 see the growth that has taken place since then. It was simply done as an interesting 

 experiment. I am sorry to say it was misconstrued, and some people, who saw it 

 here, went home and cut off the heads of their four-year-old trees— for which I got 

 all the blessing." 



Mr. Dove I thought, perhaps, it was done on account of canker ? 

 Mr. Wright— No : just as an interesting experiment. We have not tried 

 experiments yet to see what amount of latex it contains. 



experiments in tapping methods. 



Mr. Wright then proceeded to the trees, the results from which he had 

 alluded to at his lecture. The trees marked C were those done by the full herring- 

 bone. Then they had the half spiral in the trees marked B and the long spiral in 

 A. The idea of these experiments had been to get some information regarding the 

 value of each system of tapping, and as he had mentioned in his lecture the criterion 

 in these experiments was the yield of rubber per tree and per unit of excised bark. 

 These trees marked C had been tapped on 92 occasions, and the measurements taken 

 on the spot showed that in 92 tappings they had worked through only 3 to 4 inches 

 of bark approximately iu the eleven months. The trees had been pared and pricked. 



