186 



The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



RUBBER PLANTATION IN UGANDA. 



Dr. E. Black— said there were two important 

 points arising from Mr, Fyffe's paper — one of 

 which was the distance apart at which trees 

 should be grown, and the other, which was 

 much less linown, was the planting of trees 

 producing Manicoba rubber, to only one of 

 which — Ceara — Mr Fyffe had alluded. During 

 five years he had been travelling in all the 

 large rubber-producing countries, and had only 

 just returned from Brazil, and, consequently, 

 he had seen more of rubber-growing probably 

 than any other person. As to the distance at 

 which trees should be planted, two views were 

 taken on the previous day. Mr. Wickham 

 contended that there should be only 40 trees 

 to the acre and Mr. Wycherley contended that 

 there might be 240. The point could be readily 

 disposed of. The man who planted any other 

 kind of tree as close together in proportion 

 to what he hoped to get as the rubber planter 

 did would be quickly classed as a lunatic. The 

 experience of the world since the days of Noah 

 with regard to trees from which fruit was to 

 be obtained was that the trees must be planted 

 a definite distance apart, in order to prevent 

 trouble arising from the roots interlocking. 

 The reason why this trouble had not arisen 

 yet was because of the slow growth of the trees; 

 but it was coming, because rubber-growers were 

 setting at defiance the experience of the growers 

 of other trees in the world, and it was im- 

 possible that could go on. The second point 

 was of great importance. He had photographs 

 of Ceara trees in Brazil showing tine growth, 

 but the latex given was practically nil. One 

 huge tree, eight years old, gave only 20 grammes 

 of dry rubber — absolutely disastrous. This was 

 due to the trees being taken from its natural 

 surroundings. The result was they got a good 

 garden, but little rubber. 



Dr. Christie — said he was one of the lunatics 

 who advocated close planting as regarded Fun- 

 tumia, but ho did not advocate it for Hevea, It 

 was necessary to grow Funtumia closely. It 

 could not be grown unless planted closely, be- 

 cause otherwise they would not get a tapping 

 stem. The tree had the peculiarity of pruning 

 itself ; but it could not bring this peculiarity 

 into play unless it was planted closely. Uganda 

 had suffered from a plethora of knowledge of 

 the habits of trees in the forest, without any 

 knowledge of the possibilities of plantation 

 trees. In West Africa thousands of acres were 

 planted with Funtumia without any knowledge 

 of the growth of the tree in the forest. If they 

 studied the growth of the tree in the forest, 

 they would see that it count be planted closely. 

 It was a tree entirely different in its habits to 

 Hevea ; it was a deep-rooted tree ; it had not 

 big surface roots, and was a tall pole tree with 

 a bold head. It was only possible to get the 

 necessary tall stem by coppicing. The reason 

 why they must have a tall pole was because they 

 could not tap it to the bottom, as they did 

 Hevea. They had to tap to a considerable 

 height, because they could only tap the tree 

 three times id the year; the structure of the 

 bark of the two trees was entirely different, and 

 the trees had to be tapped in a different way. 

 Hevea had a network of lactiferous . tissue, 



whereas in Funtumia they had an upright, 

 parallel system of ducts, which had no connec- 

 tion with each other ; and if ihey attempted to 

 tap the Funtumia as they would the Hevea 

 there would be a "die-back" of the part, fol- 

 lowed by the death of the tree. He denied Mr. 

 Fyffe's statement that the Funtumia was a slow 

 grower; it was only a slow grower in the forest. 

 It was the second most rapid grower, Cerea 

 being the first. There was no doubt that Fun- 

 tumia had suffered from the wrong kind of 

 tapping being practised. He had come to the 

 conclusion that it should be tapped by the 

 incision method, and not the excision. If they 

 took out the bark the tree would die back. It 

 must be tapped by making clean incisions. 



Mr. Fyffe — adhered to his statement that 

 Funtumia was a slow grower in the forests of 

 Uganda, where alone he was acquainted with it. 

 He agreed with Dr. Christie as to tapping, and 

 believed that the best thing to use was a pricker. 



Mr. Petch— said that in Ceylon they could 

 grow Ceara like a weed, but they could not tap 

 it, though there were some estates getting good 

 results from Ceara. They tapped their trees 

 by all kinds of systems, but they did not mind 

 if the tree died as the result, because they had 

 others coming along and plenty of land. From 

 his own experiments he had not been able to 

 get a tapping system in Ceylon for Ceara with- 

 out killing the tree. The rubber was in the 

 tree undoubtedly. Up to the present the Ceylon 

 botanical department had not seen sufficient 

 evidence which would warrant them in recom- 

 mending any of the new manihots to the planter 

 in Ceylon. 



Mr. Wilhelm Paul, of Dortmund, read a 

 paper on 



"the discovery of the para reagent." 



He said: — The victory of cultivated Hevea rub- 

 ber over natural Para rubber has at last been se- 

 cured ! The mystery of Para rubber is resolved. 

 The really significant agent in Para coagulation 

 is brought to light, and we are at last in a posi- 

 tion to replace the primitive Para coagulation 

 methods by an ideal factory method,! Chemistry 

 has led on to this victory, torn asunder the 

 veil, and opened up a wealth of possibilities 

 to Hevea planters and to the whole rubber 

 world as well. The reagent that has made all 

 this possible is carbonic acid, and the advantage 

 possessed by planted Hevea rubber over Para 

 will be clear to anyone who studies the two 

 methods and balances their advantages against 

 each other. The new product combines all the 

 good points of plantation Hevea and Brazilian 

 Para, and it shall accordingly be called Hevea 

 Para. For many years chemists have striven to 

 find what was the particular agent to which the 

 marvellous results obtained in Para coagulation 

 (by the smoking process) were due. Scientists 

 from the greatest of the civilised nations have 

 bent themselves to this problem. In 1910 no 

 less persons than Drs. Frank and Markwald; of 

 the Dr. Rob. Henriquez Nachfolger Laboratory, 

 busied themselves with this question. With in- 

 finite pains they obtained Urikuri palm nuts, 

 such as are used in the forests for smoking Para, 

 and subjected them to a rigorous chemical ex- 

 amination. They found many things, but, un- 

 fortunately, they did not discover the right one. 



