668 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [April 1, 1901. 
notes on the subject collected by Mr. Keuther. I.F.S., 
and reproduced below ; — 
MANIHOT GLAziovii ("Ceara). 
Climate.— 1hu\ea under a very wide range of con- 
ditions. M Ceara, grows even ia desert plains with 
rainfall under 50 inches, where the vegetation is 
scorched up during the greater part of the year, and 
thrives also on mountains up to 3,500 feet elevation, 
where the rainfall reaches 100 inches and the night 
temperature falls even below 60°. A rainfall of 60 
inches to 70 inches is ordinarily sufficient, but about 
100 inches suits the tree better. In Ceylon, thrives 
up to 3,000 feet elevation. 
Soil.—M Ceara, thrives best in scanty soil among 
granite boulders; never in marshy soil. Though 
growing readily on hillsides in poor, rocky soil, un- 
Buited to almost any agricultural crop, it thrives best 
where the ground ia covered with shrubs. 
In Ceylon, grows on most barren soils. 
Characteristics. — A moderate-sized tree, with ereet 
- stem 30 feet to 50 feet high and 2J to feet girth (at R 
feet from the ground). Bounded crown. 
Hardy, adaptable, fast grower ; not prone to insect 
or fungoid attack ; requires little or no attention 
once established. 
Readily raised from seed ; can be propagated from 
cuttings as easily as willow. In every part of the 
■world where it has been introduced, the seed produc- 
tion is abundant, and the seed may be gathered 
already at .3 to 5 years of age. Large areas could 
therefore be planted in short time; In Brazil the seed 
is universally sown directly in the plots which the 
trees are intended ultimately to occupy (just like 
teak seed in taungya plantations), and nurseries and 
transplanting are not required. 
ARTIFICIAL CULTIVATION. 
Spacing. — Recommended to be planted thickly, 
with judicious thinning to follow. 
Otrmination. — Seed-coat hard and thick ; said to r«- 
quire more than a year to germinate. But germination 
inducible within two or three weeks by rasping ofi with 
a file both edges at the radicular eud (reoogQizable 
externally by th« two-lobed caruncle). 
Development.— la Ceylon, attains in 2| years a 
height of 25 feet to 30 feet and girth of 1 foot 9 
inches at 3 feet from the ground. Flowers at 18 
months of age. 
Rubber. — Quality excellent : second only to the best 
' Para." Yield equal in quantity to that of "Para."— 
ndian Forester- 
THE TAPIOCA PLANT. 
An interesting correspondence between Dr, 
Watt, the Reporter on Economic Products, the 
Secretary of State for India, and Mr. Robert 
Thomson, concerning the value of the tubers of 
tlie Cassava or Tapioca plant, as an alternative 
food stuff in seasons of scarcity and famine, has 
been published as an "Agricultural Ledger." 
My. Thomson urges that the numerous varieties 
of the Cassava cultivated in Columbia should 
be introduced to India .vhere, he declares, if 
widely distributed as a subsidiary crop to rice 
it would ,vard off famine. The Columbian varieties 
of Cassava, he says, ffourish with a total annual 
rainfall of from 14 to 16 inches, while the plant 
thrives admirably when droughts extend over 
six montlis at a time. It is thus pre-eminently 
a di ought-resisting crop, while rice requires 
from 50 to 60 inches of rain in a ye.ar. Some 
of the varieties grow in rich soil, and some in 
exhausted or impoverished soil ; and while certain 
varieties are cultivated on the hot plains others 
are grown at elevations up to 6,000 feet abova 
sea level. Dr. Watt declared that he had little 
faith in the value of acclimatisation in the 
abstract, ia the improvement of the resources of 
a country, and he doubted whether one per cent of 
the experiments hitherto performed in India of 
that nature had proved of practical value. The 
development of the existing resources by selection 
was, he stated, infinitely more satisfactory. Wiih 
that object in view, he was endeavouring to obtain 
information of the extent of the food supplies of 
India of the nature mentioned. Mr. Thomson ^ 
replied that Cassava was chiefly known in India 
as a source of Tapioca, but the Columbian 
varieties had been culiivated in that country 
from time immemorial, and they were the result 
of slow and gradual selection. His experience 
ot tropical planting in regard to acclimatisation 
differed from that of Dr. Watt. To raise new 
varieties or races from the existing Indian varieties 
which are found only in restricted areas would, 
in Mr. Thomson's opinion, take a long period 
of years, whereas a score of valuable new varieties 
are immediately obtainable from Columbia. There 
is every reason to believe, he observes, that these 
would' readily accommodate themselves to a wide 
area of India. The last word so far, however, 
falls to Dr. Watt who, as the Editor of the 
"Agricultural Leder," remarks in a foot-note that 
it is probable that a few years would suffice to 
reduce all the various forms to which Mr. Thomson 
alludes to two or three, and that these would 
not differ materially from the acclimatif^ed varieties 
already met with in India, — The Indian Agri- 
culturist. 
CAOUTCHOUC PLANTATIONS IN ASSAM. 
By W. R. Fisher, b a., i,f,s. 
I see, in the report on the caouthchouc planta- 
tions in Assam, a statement that the Bomani 
Hill plantation yielded 9*5 lb. of clean rubber 
per acre, and that the Charduar plantation 
yielded 9*4 lb,, there being 92 trees per acre on 
the Bomani Hill and 14 per acre on the Charduar. 
Mr. McKee remarks that this proves that a 
densely-planted area does not yield more rubber 
than one sparsely planted, while it must have 
cost more to plant out originally and to establish 
as a going concern, 
I chose the site for both these plantations in 
1873-74, and managed them for about two years. 
In the Charduar plantation, lines forty feet wide 
were cut one hundred feet apart in dense ever- 
green forest, full of cane-brakes, large Ficua 
trees and other difficulties. Colonel Keating, the 
Chief Commissioner of Assam, was struck with the 
waste of timber this involved and the great 
expense of clearing the line, and directed that 
an experimental plantation should be made on 
grass land near the Brahmaputra River, Mr, Mann, 
the Conservator of Forests, considered that trees 
grown on grass land would not yield anything 
like the same supply of caouicheuc, as trees grown 
in the humid air of the evergreen forest, and 
his opinion was based on the fact that some 
large trees that had been tapped in Tejpur yielded 
very little rubber. The plantation on grass land 
at iSomani Hill was therefore limited to a small 
experimental area. The expenditure on it, how- 
ever, was a mere fraction of the coat of the 
Charduar plantation, as far as I remember, and 
it would be interesting if the Assam Forest 
Department were to publish figures showing the 
comparative cost of the two plantations per acre, 
now that it has been proved that they return au 
e^ual yielU per acrn, 
