and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society.— August, 1911. 171 



fact that they never did anything at all in the 

 matter ; and it eventually became necessary for 

 me to expose their impostures which I did in the 

 * Agricultural Bulletin." Still a story ouce star- 

 ted takes a great deal of time to catch up, especi- 

 ally if it happens to be quite mythical. 



You are rightabout the seeds sent to Ceylon in 

 about 1883. We sent a lotas our trees fruited 

 first. We were then (1883-1884) distributing to 

 Borneo and other parts oi the world. 



It was to Messrs Murton and Oantl'ey that 1 ho 

 F.M.S. owe their estates and not to Sir Hugh 

 Low nor Sir Frank Swettenham. Sir Hugh was 

 indeed a great agriculturist and must rank 

 next to Raffles as all round the greatest man we 

 have had hero. If he had remained here, agricul- 

 ture would have been a century a ahead of its 

 present day status ; but much of his work was 

 destroyed after he left. 



I hope you will some time see your way to cor- 

 recting the " Low" myth, which I suspect arose 

 out of jealousy between the F. M. S. and the 

 Straits Colony ; but it is difficult to find out who 

 started it. 



The whole story from documents, letters, 

 archives and actual knowledge on my part is pub- 

 lished in the Bulletin and is indisputable. I am 

 also publishing a pamphlet on the history of the 

 industry for the Rubber Exhibition, which may 

 help to kill the myth. — Yours sincerely, 



HENRY N. RIDLEY. 

 To this we append from the " Agricultural 

 Bulletin of the Straits and Federated Malay 

 States" January, 1903 : - 



THE HISTORY OF THE INTRODUCTION 

 OF PARA RUBBER INTO THE 

 MALA¥ PENINSULA. 



As there has been a good deal of confusion as 

 to the history of the introduction of the plaut 

 into the East, the following history may be of 

 some interest. In a letter dated 17th April, 

 1878, from Sir William Thiselton Dyer, then 

 Secretary to Sir Joseph Hooker at Kew Gardens, 

 he writes: "On 4th June, 1873, we received from 

 Mr Markham some hundreds of seeds, obtained 

 from Mr Jas. Collins ; of these seeds less than a 

 dozen germinated and six of tho plants so ob- 

 tained were taken by DrKing, Superintendent 

 of the Botanic Gardens, Calcutta, in the same 

 year to India. The climate of Calcutta did not 

 prove very favourable to the Heveas which 

 require trie conditions of growth met with 

 in hot and moist tropical forests. It was 

 therefore decided on consultation with Mr Mark- 

 ham that in the event of more Heveas being 

 raised and sent out from Kew they should be 

 received at the Botanic Gardens, Ceylon, which 

 should then be regarded as the depot for 

 supplying young plants to such parts of India as 

 were suite,! for its growth. 



On J une 14th, 1876, we received from Mr. 

 Wickham about 70,000 seeds of which about 4 

 per cent germinated. On August 9th, we des- 

 patched 1,919 plants raised from these seeds in 

 Wardian Cases in charge of a gardener. Of the 

 whole consignment 90 per cent reached Dr. 

 Thwaites in excellent condition. On August 11th 

 50 plants were sent to the Botanic Gardens, Sin- 

 gapore. Owing to the delay in payment of freight 

 these plants ail perished. 



On June 11th, 1877, 22 plants were sent to the 

 Botanic Gardens, Singapore. 



In October of this year Mr. Murton, Superin- 

 tendent of the Gardens, Singapore, planted him- 

 self 9 Heveas and 1 Oastilloa at the back of the 

 residency in Kwala Kangsa. Mr. Low reports, 

 " They were brought hero in October last by Mr 

 Murton and planted at the back of the residency 

 and are growing very well. They were quite 

 small when they arrived here, but the Castilloa 

 is uow(July 26th, 1878), 5 feet high with branches 

 of equal length and the Heveas vary from 4 to 8 

 feet and are growing vigorously." In a subse- 

 quent report dated February 3rd, 1879, Mr. 

 Low writes 'the Heveas are now 12 to 14 feet 

 high. They take to the country immensely. 

 The Castilloa is a large tree 10 feet high with 

 branches 5 feet long." 



At the same time that these were planted 

 some Para, Castilloa and Ceara rubbers were 

 also planted at Durian Sabatang (Teluk Anson), 

 but it appears they were washed away by a flood 

 snortly aiter. 



In a later letter from Sir Hugh Low to the 

 Royal Gardens, Kew, dated December 11th, 

 189(5, he writes " As I am writing I should like 

 to mention that the Hevea Braziliensis, which 

 having received from Kew through Singapore,I 

 planted at Kwala Kangsar in Perafe:,grew magni- 

 ficently and fruited I believe two or three years 

 before those of Ceylon. I distributed the seeds 

 to various places in the neighbourhood and 

 thej are now to be found in Mr Hills' Coffee Gar- 

 dens in various parts of the Peninsula and seve- 

 ral places in Perak. When Mr Swettenham was 

 at heme in the summer I enquired of him as to 

 their condition and found thoy were not thought 

 to be of any value as some Dyaks had tapped 

 some of the largest trees and found that scarcely 

 any juice exuded from them/' This unfortunate 

 statement seems to have deterred Perak plan- 

 ters from paying any attention to Para rubber 

 for some time. Sir Hugh Low obtained some 

 seed from somewhere m 1882 and gave it to Mr 

 Wray who planted it at Kwala Kangsar. This 

 may have come from the old trees there, for Sir 

 Hugh Low sent seed (50) from Perak to the 

 Singapore Gardens ; the same year seeds were 

 distributed from the Singapore Gardens, the 

 first recorded being sent to the Bishop of 

 Sarawak. 



This entirely disposes of the statements by 

 Wray* and others that the first seeds or 

 plants introduced into Perak were introduced 

 by Sir Hugh Low in 1882. In fact almost every 

 plant of Para rubber in the Malay Peninsula was 

 derived from the Botanic Gardens, Singapore, 

 and the^e directly or indirectly through Ceylon 

 from the Royal Gardens, Kew. 



In 1877, Murton who had plauted the young 

 trees received from Kew as above mentioned, in 

 the Upper Garden, (removed) to a mure suitable 

 locality in the new Economic Gardens and the 

 trees on the right side of the plate are believed 

 to be these plants In his report for 1881, Mr. 

 Cantley writes ''the tallest Hevea (in the gard- 

 ens) is now 25 ft. tall and 14 inches round the 

 base. These trees commenced to fruit in 1882." 



* Notes on Rubber-growing in Perak (Thai- 

 ping 1897.) 



