770 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[May 1, 190L 
To the Editor. 
"REH" AND IRRIGATED LAND. 
Paris, March 1. 
Sir,— A letter of "A. D." (p. 542) in your 
Tropical Agriculturist for February, 1901, 
informs me that you have ("du saland") 
reli in Ceylon. In that case you would do 
well to askM. C W Hilgard, Director of the 
Agricultural Experimental Station, at Berke- 
ley, California, to send you his hist memoir 
on this question, and you might give a trans- 
lation of it in the Tropical Agriculturist. 
The ideas of "A D " seem to me right. Will 
you also have some specimens sent toM. Hil- 
gard? He will be happy to analyse them. 
Cordially yours, 
J VELBOUCHEVITCH. 
[We suppose M. Hilgard's memoir, if 
for use in California, must be in Enghsh ? 
Perhaps our correspondent "A D" (in the 
Tangalla district) will send us a few specimens 
of what he called "reh" to have transmitted 
to M. Hilgard. -Ed. T.A.] 
RUBBER EXTRACTION FROM BARK. 
Paris, 2nd March, 1901. 
Dear Sir, — The process of e.\:tractioa of the 
rubber from thebark is making very quick progress. 
Ten years ago nobody was thinking about it. 
Today we have a few reports on tlie opportuneness 
of such a process. You know that many plants 
are exploited by the cutting of the stem, what you 
call I believe peeling the tree ; such are many 
roots, and slow growers such as Mascarenhasia 
and others from Madagascar, Landolphia Hende- 
loHi from Soudan, and a lot of roots primi- 
tively neglected because it was quite out of 
practice to tap them by the common process. 
Some were cut in pieces and put to bleed into 
recipients, as is done with Urceolo ; but all 
the sap remaining in the bark after the operation 
was lost for ever. Now you can obtain from that 
neglected bark more rubber than the quantity 
obtained fiom tbe latex ; and I know people 
asking for our process, intending to use it for 
the neglected barks left by the natives on the spot. 
If it is true in the countries where the natives are 
accustomed to tap the vines, how much more in the 
regions where the collector must make the educa- 
tion of the collector of rubber, what can be the 
colour of his skin ? If par-dessus It marche,* I 
cannot translate this French locution, the 
Governor of the colony has promulgated laws for 
the regulation of collecting the rubber, 
avoiding the cutting of the vines, stating that they 
must be tapped in official mode ; when these 
vines are so long, so old, so large, the collector 
thinks that the weather is too bad for working 
and he sleeps till better times. But if you can 
say to the collector : go and cut the vines, but 
bring me the rubber you have obtained and if it is too 
meticulous [timid !] for you, bring me the bark, the 
white, yellow, blacker undetermined, — the coloured 
man will think that to cut the vines is a very 
pleasant work for him and the crop of the bark 
a very i)leasant one for his wife and he will go 
to work at once. 
If it is true for the collecting of the bark, how 
much more it is tor the enricJdssement * — another 
■word I cannot manage— of this bark. 
The Landolphia Hendelotii per oz. contains 
from 7 per cent to 1 per cent of pure rubber. 
When the bark is dried quickly, — and I say 
quickly because when the operation is done slowly 
tlie fermentation is a cause of loss of the gum, 
— this bark is easily Ijioken in a mortar, a com- 
mon one for the decortication ot paddy ; so after 
a few minutes the operator can .sepirate a few 
per cent of the impuritie*., and as [ieiierally 
native women are e.Kpert in the nianipulatioa 
of the pestle, their lords and m isters have no hesi- 
tation in entrustintr iliem to perfect tliis work. 
I have received bark oi better vubhyr prepared 
by the female beauties of Senegal, containing no 
more than 20 per cent of ini|nirities. Such lubber 
is a very commercial one and will bd accepted 
on any market. 
It is naturally nuich more difficult to bring 
this rubber to purity, but we must not ■ be too 
px -ictiiig and suchi uLber will lead the way in the 
iuanufactu)e of pure rubber. With patience it is 
po.ssible to obtain nearly pure rubber by these 
primitive processes ; but the buyer is judge of the 
question; he can pay the rubber on the percent- 
age and the analysis is quite mechanical. If 
tlie buyer take one ounce of the product and 
use an iron mortar and pestle and take the for- 
mation of nature ; after a few minute.-^, if he 
has had the precaution ot wetting the bark, he 
will extract a certain proportion of impurities and 
obtain a parcel of rubber nearly pure and a sutii- 
cient sample for judging t!ie quality and the 
quantity of good rubber in the sample. After 
a very short time he will be able to avoid any 
mistake. 
The extraction of rubber from the bark gives 
better product than the bleeding : — I send yo« a 
little sample of Borneo rubber obtained two years 
ago, and you will see that it is much better than 
the rubber generally offered on the market; from 
this country. It has been prepared by a col- 
lector using this process for the first time. It 
is enough for today. — Belie\e nie, yours truly, 
A. GODEFROY-LEBEUF. 
COFFEE AND ITS ENEMIES IN B.C. 
AFRICA. 
[By an old Ceylon Plantkr.] 
Dear Sir, — I send you a paper which 
I penned abotrt 18 tnonths ago, relating to the 
difficulties we have to contenc". with in B C A. 
in regard to the many enemies of our staple 
industry, colfee planting. 
To these enemies we have now to add the 
.spotted bug. This little pest is very like a lady- 
bird and, unlike all the Ceylon coifee bugs, flies 
about from tree to tree sucking at the juice of 
the flower, fruit and tender shoots or buds as they 
appear on the coffee trees. The damage done 
to the flower is terrible, completely destroying 
the fructifying power even in the most f.ivourable 
weather. In regard to the fruit the insect sucks 
the juice, and seems to inject ])oiso!i into the 
berry when young which turns it black or spotted 
or streaky, so that the truit wibhers up and 
drops off the trees, even when it reaches the 
size of peas, just the same as the leaf disease 
* i.e. If the labour ia too expensive.— Ed, 2.^, 
* Improvement of the bark.— Ed. T.A. 
