700 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[April 1, 1904. 
EUBBER AND THE MYSOEE PLANTERS. 
{From a Special Cor'respondent.) 
The number of instances of successful rubber 
plantations in various parts of the world is so great 
.hat rubber planting may now be said to have 
emerg;ed f rom the stage of a mere commercial ex- 
periment. South and Central America, Mexicii, 
the Malay Peninsula, Oeylon and Java are a few 
of the countries where considerable areas are under 
cultivation and are already producing rubber, and 
the aggregate yield from these may be expected to 
attain large dimensions within the next few years. 
On the other hand a great part of the world's total 
supply of rubber now comes from East and West 
Africa and the Congo Free State, where it is har- 
vested in such a way as to lead to the probable 
extermination of the rubber forests at no very 
distant date. Of the total production of the world 
computed in 1900 at 57,500 tons, 24,000 tons were 
put down as coming from Africa; and of the 54,000 
tons said to be the amount ot the world's rubber 
harvests in 1902, 20,000 tons were described as 
African. It will thus be seen that there will be 
much scope for rubber cultivation in the world if 
the African supply is going to gradually diminish. 
The relation between supply and demand, or 
the statistical position as it is called, may there- 
fore, be considered likely to remain favourable to 
the grower for some years. The Mysore 
Government, who have ever been considerate to 
the planting industry in the State, are among the 
first to encourage the enterprise. They recently 
issued an Order granting land, limited to abour 50 
acres in each case, to applicants for expeiimental 
cultivation cn the following liberal terms : — 
(1) That the land Bhonld be held free of assessment 
for the first five years. (2) That full assessment to be 
fixed by the Survey and Settlement Commissioner, 
should be paid from the sixth year. (3) That the work 
of planting should be commenced within one year from 
the date of the grant of the lands. (4) That the Forest 
Department will have no objection to the actual plots 
chosen. (5) That the trees existing in the lands granted 
will not be cut down in stocking the area with rubber 
plants without the permission of the Revenue or Forest 
Department. (6) That the Forest or Revenue 
Department should be allowed to cut and remove 
valuable timber trees which are not required for pur- 
poses of shade. (7) That the grant shall be liable to 
summary resumption on failure of the guarantee to 
comply with any of the above mentioned conditions. 
The result as might be expected, has been that 
several applications have been sent in, and thai, so 
far from being contented with 50 acre grants, 
some planters have applied for 1,000 awes 
and more, It will not perhaps be inop- 
portune at this point to offer a word of warning. 
One of my acquaintances said the other day: — 'I 
am going to plant 1,000 acres and I am going to 
plant three kinds, Para, Castilloa and Ceara.' 
Asked whether it would not be wiser to first ex- 
periment or make enquiries as to whether one of 
these kinds would not be very much more suited 
to the particular part of Mysore in which he pro- 
posed to operate than the other two, he said : — 
• Oh, I am certain they will all do ; I have read any 
amount about them duilng the last three months,' 
Now allowance must also be made for the different 
predilections of the three genera as regards climate. 
The soil in Mysore, is rich, it is true, and the 
water abundant, but it would seem to be beyond 
doubt that Ceara, Para and Castilloa will require 
to be grown at different elevations. Mr Cameron, 
Superintendent of the Mysore Government Botani- 
cal Gardens, after experimenting for some years 
with different varieties of rubber-yielding trees 
in Bangalore, and other places in the Province, 
found the Castilloa elaxtica ot Central America, 
do so well at Bangalore, where it seeded, that he 
recommended that abandoned coffee estates 
throughout Mysore should be planted with i'j, and 
he concluded that it should do for the Malnad what 
Ceara is expected to do for the Maidan country. 
Oeara, of course, is known to thrive in Mysore 
under most conditions. Indeed, it may be called 
the rubber par excellence of Mysore. Mr Cameron 
recommends it being planted on the Maidan and it 
has certainly been found to grow like a weed and 
come up spontaneously in the Malnad, But it has 
two great drawbacks. One is that its produce is 
not nearly so valuable as that of Castilloa, and in 
a still less degree as that of Para. The other is the 
great uncertainty as regards its yield. Mr Cameron 
came to the conclusion from his experiments 
at Bangalore that there was no doubt 
that some trees under any circumstances are 
physically more productive than others ; and the 
same conclusion has been corroborated by many 
other planters both in India and elsewhere. Bet- 
ter results have been found to be obtainable cer- 
tainly at some seasons than others and by different 
methods of tapping ; but, allowing for this, some 
trees remain extraordinarily productive while others 
are practically barren ; and it has not yet been 
ascertained for certain whether the good qualities 
of the former are herediUry or not. The best 
result obtained by Mr Cameron was a yield from 
one tree of 3!b of India rubber, obtained by re- 
gular tapping in six months. 
Mr R L Proudlock, Curator of the Govern- 
ment Botanical Gardens, Ootacamund, whose 
experiments with various rubbers are especially 
valuable, also observed the remarkable difference 
in the yield of rubber from Ceara trees of the 
same size and age, and he considers that by selec- 
tion of the best latex-yielding trees, and by propa- 
gating from them a variety yielding a really pay- 
ing percentage ot rubber might be evolved. He 
has accordingly propagated a large numberof plants 
from the best variety of Ceara trees, and these 
can be obtained, 1 believe, from the Botanical 
Gardens at Ootacamund. He has also carried out 
some valuable experiments with Para and Castilloa, 
as well , as half a dozen other less generally known 
genera which, however, want of space forbids my 
discussing in the course of this article. The results 
of Mr Proudlock's exertions were to be seen at 
the recent Madras Industrial Exhibition in a 
very fine collection of .50 exhibits excluding a 
valuable series of photographs. If experiments are 
necessary in Ceylon, where i ubbers have been ex- 
perimented with for many years, it is much more 
necessary in the jnngles of Mysore.—^. Mail, 
RUBBER PLANTING AND THE R. B. 
GARDENS. 
THE STOCK OF PAEA RUBBER SEED. 
The following letter from the Director of the 
Koyal Batanic Gardens to the Secretary, Ceylod 
Planters' Association as to the right of India ovef 
the seed at the Gardens was tabled at the Secre* 
tariat 
Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya, 26th Feb- 
ruary, 1904. 
Sir, — With reference to correspondence on the 
subject of Rubber Planting in India, it may sav^ 
