Gums, Resins, 



112 



fectly clear to all and acknowledged by me. Your correspondent " Pollard Rubber " 

 should know that there are generally no lateral branches at the height advo- 

 cated by Mr. Wright on young Heveas. This is another interesting scheme 

 which requires to be tried. I follow all suggestions from the Botanic Gardens.— 

 Yours faithfully, 



G. H. GOLLEDGE. 



IV. 



January 21st. 



Dear Sir,— I have read with considerable interest your correspondence 

 on the above subject. Though I write subject to correction, I think it is fairly 

 obvious that neither the correspondent who tries to discourage the idea, nor 

 the one who supports Mr. Herbert Wright, has got a real understanding of 

 what the process involves and the effect on the plants. It is common practice 

 in European and other gardens to discourage vertical or high growth in stems 

 and to induce lateral (not later) branch growth by cutting off the terminal 

 leaves or by thumb-nail pruning the terminal bud only. This operation is a 

 delicate one, and is not intended to be carried out on thick stems of old trees ; it is 

 best carried out on stems from five to twenty feet in height. If the terminal bud, 

 or the bud and the leaves near it, are cut away, growth in the vertical direction is 

 necessaxily stopped, and, if the operation is properly executed, is followed by the 

 bursting of buds in the axils of the leaves below. Instead of high Avoody stems 

 dwarf plants with increased foliage and thicker basal stems are produced. This is 

 quite different from what Mr. Golledge has been doing, and I imagine that Mr. 

 Wright could have guaranteed failure to follow such a drastic and illogical 

 operation. 



On page 21 of " Hevea Brasiliensis or Para Rubber," Mr. Wright states : — 

 " The Para rubber tree naturally grows to a tall slender tree, and it rema ins to be seen 

 how by pollarding the young plants an increase in circumference may be obtained 

 at the expense of the growth in height. Considering what has been accomplished 

 with tea, where plants— ordinarily growing into fairly stout trees over twenty feet 

 high— have been converted into small bushes two to four feet in height, it would be 

 idle to predict the possibilities with Para rubber. The prevention of the unnecessary 

 growth in height may well form the subject of many experiments." 



On page 51 the actual measurements of forked trees are given, and it is 

 further stated that "it does not need any argument to prove that an increase in 

 circumference of over thirty inches is an advantage, and the fact that such an 

 increase has occurred in the tapping areas of trees about thirty years old is sufficiently 

 encouraging to tempt the planter to carry out a few pollarding or bud pruning 

 experiments once his trees have attained a height of about ten to twenty feet. The 

 buds, which appear in undesirable places, can be removed by ' thumb-nail ' pruning." 



The full text, therefore, gives one a different idea of Mr. Herbert Wright's 

 suggestion to that which one of your correspondents implied. The principle is quite 

 sound, and is of vital importance to rubber planters who have only recently planted 

 their clearings, but is of little value— and obviously dangerous— to planters with 

 old trees " over a hundred hills." I have seen the forked trees of Para rubber at 

 Henaratgoda, and your correspondent should take his average from thirty-year-old 

 trees, and he will find that the remarks on page 50 and 51 and the intervening illus- 

 tration in " Hevea Brasiliensis " are correct and very instructive. 



You cannot get much change out of Mr. Herbert Wright as to the value of 

 the higher parts of thirty-year old rubber trees, and I have not noticed a reply to 

 your original correspondent on that point, but any one can see what is being done 



