244 
THE TROPICAL 
AGEICULTURIST. [Oct. 1, 1903. 
from each ; the strongest will get the most of 
the food and the weakest will go to the wall. 
We have coffee lining witli coconuts, but the older 
the coconut tree gets, the less the coffee tree bears. 
It will be the same with rubber. It may not do 
much harm for a year or two, but after that the 
spread of the roots of the strongest will tell a 
tale on the yield of the weakest. 
I see that you wisely did not venture into specu- 
lation on the 
FUTURE YIELD 
of the three million trees said to be growing in 
Ceylon, or the other thrae million in the Straits 
and States. The forecast might come right, but it 
is quite as likely it would be misleading, for the 
one half of those trees now growing so quickly 
and thickly must give way to make grow>ug room 
for the rest. The thinning out process must begin 
very soon, and will have to be continued year by 
year until trees that have arrived at the age of 
8 or 9 years are standing 24 by 24, or it may be 
wider, apart. We hear of tapping trees hve and six 
years old, but it is not decided if it is advisable 
for the future of the tree at so early an age, or, 
if it could be done withouc hurt, whether the 
results would pay. 
You have raised the question of development of 
EUBBEE PLANTING BY " IRRIGATION," 
but it has to be considered whether land irrigable 
would not grow other and better paying crops 
that would give more employment and profit to 
the multitude, • that rubber would grow and grow 
well by irrigation. So long as the irrigated land 
did not become waterlogged, there can be no doubt, 
but where there are " the toiling masses " to be 
fed I would consider it a misapplication of land 
to grow rubber when lice and other food stuffs 
could be grown giving far more employment to 
labour than rubber ever will. Regarding this 
country, where so far rubber has> been grown, 
it is growing only on low lands; the water 
instead of being supplied has had to be got 
rid of, Even if we take to planting the higher 
lands, we should not need to irrigate as the 
rainfall is so abundant and well distributed. 
•A few years ago 
THE MALAY STATES 
offered blocks up to a thousand acres in extent 
for rubber planting. The quit rent was to be 10 
cents of a dollar per acre for ten years ; afterwards 
the ordinary quit rent of 50 cents. I am "not aware 
that much advantage was taken of the offer, [ 
know of one or two Ceylon men who did take 
land under these conditions, but there were not 
many besides. I think this offer no longer exists 
as it was only the other day given out by authority 
tliat quit rent of all land taken up in future will 
be one dollar per acre. It may seem somew.iat 
strange to planters in Ceylon that terms so liberal 
were not more largely availed of. I think the 
ejcplanatioa may be that the weakness of the 
Survey Department did not allow in advance the 
examination and survey of blocks of suitable land 
and that applicants had, in' a densely forested 
country, to look out the land for themselves. This 
is rather rough work to which the Ceylon man, for 
instance, brought up on a long opened tea estate, 
waa quite unaccustomed and did not care to 
face ; that more would have been taken up had 
there been better preparation is more than likely. 
What the moving cause of the present 
INCREASE OP QUIT RENT 
together with a premium of 2^ dollars per acre 
may be I have no idea. I can only say that it 
seems inopportune at a time when planting has not, 
through rubber and coconuts, recovered from the 
severe losses and disappointments from the fall 
in price of Liberian coffee, and the continued de- 
pression of thai price for tlie last five or six years. 
Planting in 1896, when coffee was over $40 a 
picul and producing plentifully, without disease, 
promised good things for the planters. The bright 
vision from that source has proved but an un- 
pleasant dream. Planters, however, with the en- 
ergy and persistence derived in good measure from 
Ceylon, whence so many of them had come, did not 
.despair of the soil or the climate that gives it its 
value. While making the most of the attenuated 
profits left them on coffee, they set to work to sub- 
stitute other products and they began over again 
with coconuts and rubber for their future hope. 
One is given over to wonder why, when things 
are, as regards planting, in such a transition 
state, the Federal Government should more than 
double the cost of the land. The natural thing 
to suppose is that such a step would be reserved 
till the new planting brought some prosperity to 
the planters. It is nob at present as if there was 
a run on land for planting. All that planters 
are doing or can do, is to make the best of what 
they have gob, and under such circumstances to 
put a premium and enhanced quit rent on land 
is, to say the least of it, a curious way of 
giving effect to the publicly expressed sympathy 
with the enterprise. 
It would seem as if, while tin mining is so 
prosperous, the governing authorities are unable 
to realise that some day they may waken up to 
find that the 
AGRICULTURAL INTEREST 
is after all the mainstay of the future. For 
the present, however, tin holds the field. The 
miner is made much of and the poor planter 
has to get along with only words that 
may mean much, bub produce but little. 
This should be a good country for the planter 
if Government would wake up to realise the im« 
pDrtance of developing the agricultural interests 
of the country. Attention is given chiefly to the 
mining and railway interests both of which are 
important for it is the profits from the former that 
help to extend the latter. A railway in this 
country is a great convenience and should bs a 
great developer, but I cannot say that in Perak 
planting has greatly, if at all, developed with the 
extension and now completion of the railway, and 
I can only attribute it to the want of Government 
encouragement and inducement, I do not look 
for real and hearty sympathy with the planting 
enterprise in this land until tin has gone down 
to a price that materially reduces Government 
revenue. The required attention and substantial 
encouragement will then be given to planters to 
take up the land which is now waste, and of which 
there is so much to be utilised for production of 
food and other products. 
UGANDA EUBBER TEADE. 
Replying to a question as to the term 
and conditions granted to the Italian Colo- 
nial Trading Company and the Victoria 
Nyanza Agency respectively for the collec- 
tion of rubber in the Uganda Protectorate, 
