Dec. -2, 1901. J 
THE TEOPICAL AGEICULTITRIST. 
369 
Ficus macrophylla, also a native tree, is very 
handsome. In the gardens is a broad-spreading 
speoimeii,, with a stem 2 feet in diameter, the roots 
exposed for many square yards around the base ; 
the fruit, not large, is freely borne, and the brown 
under-snrface of the leaf offers a pleasing contrast 
to the solid green of the whole. Kigelia pinnata is 
at home, and bears many loose racemes of large 
deep carmine blooms, on pendent stalks 3 to feet 
long. 
The rose-garden, containing many beds surround- 
ing the finest Araucaria Bidvvillii in the grounds (a 
s,^9cimen about 70 feet high), is filled with well- 
grown plants, almost exclusively Teas and Chinas, 
as one might expect. A box-wood tree, ffasmatoxylon 
campechiannm, with a much-divided sttm, is close 
to Quercus suber, Q. Toza, and Q. cerris, frcm South 
Europe ; they are, liowever, scarcely fine specimens, 
though the English Oak, Quercus peduncnlata, seeds 
well, and makes a good tree. Liquidambar and 
Litiodeudron are also both evidently thoroughly 
at home. 
Near Mr. MacMahou's house is a fine bed of 
Arabian Coffee, loaded with berries. A bed of Alla- 
manda neriifolia, close by, was one mass of flower, 
Cedrus Deodara, Mtignolia granditlora, and Erio- 
botrya japonica, are uot good, the climate being 
evidently too dry and hot for them, though a 
Camellia seems in a very fair condition. Plumeria 
acuminata is as line and free-blooming as in India ; 
as is a species of Terminalia, with its peculiar ob- 
long sessile foliage. Near a Poinciana regia, its 
stems carrying many immense Platyceriuni alcicorne, 
s a group of Palms, two of which are probably the 
best specimens of the order in the gardens — one a 
Juboea spectabilis, the other a Sabal Palmetto. Also 
fine, are au Oreodoxa regia 30 feet high, and some 
broad masses of Rhapis liabelliformis. 
The most successful examples of growth here, as 
in Bowen Park, are unquestionably the Bamboos. 
Several large clumps of iiambusa arundinacea, with 
thickly interlaced tough stems, 40 to 50 feet high, 
cracking and bending m every breeze, shade, near 
the centre of the grounds, one of its prettiest spots 
— a large open-air fernery, containing Alsophilaa 
Dicksonias, Asplenium nidus, Platyceriums, Ravenalas 
Cannas with flovser-spikes 8 feet high, Carjotas 
Livistonas, c&c. At the end is a neat avenue of 
Guavas (Psidum guava), the smooth Stuartia-like 
stems, and pale glossy foliage, through which 
now peep the innumerable fruits just commencing 
to swell, being very pretty. 
The Moreton Bay Chestnut (Castanospermum 
australe), of course does well, as do Butea frondosa 
and Btrychnos nux-vomioa. A curious tree is 
Davidsonia pruriens ; each leaflet of its large pin- 
nate foliage is nearly of the substance, size, and 
colour of a good-sized Loquat leaf. Sterculia rupea- 
tris, the narow-leaved Bottle-tree, is more noticable 
etill ; of one specimen, the smooth circular stem is 
4 feet in diameter at the base, but narrows gradually 
to 1 foot at 8 feet from the ground, whence for the 
remainder of its height (another 7 feet) only the 
smallest branches are seen. 
The native trees do not, as here represented, strike 
me as particularly ornamental, though in the bush, 
from all accounts, some must be very fine. In the 
gardens, however, some trees are uot particularly 
interesting. Agathis robusta is an exception. This 
can be picked out anywhere by its tall, slim clean 
stem and pear-shaped head of daik foliage. Two 
good specimens are not le-s than 70 feet in height. 
Blceocarpus grandis, Spondia pleiogyne (the Bur- 
dekin Plum-tree), Alenrites moluccana (the Candle- 
nut-tree), with long-lobed foliage and bunches of 
green fruit each as large as a good-sized egg-Plum ; 
Erythvina Vespertilio the Australian Bark trees, 
and Cassia Brewsteri, its thin, circular, brown pods, 
12 to 15 inches long, hanging in piofusion, are all 
representative of the native flora. On leaving I 
nassecl beueath au Indian Cluster Fig> Ficus glo- 
merata, the fruit on short stalks in thick bunches 
of every shade of colour, from green through yellow 
to bright red, cluster on the old branches 18 inches 
in diameter. The masses of fruit rotting on the 
ground beneath the tree testify to its extraordinary 
productiveness, I also noted on leaving Combretum 
pnrpureum, and Beaumontia grandifiora, growing 
luxurianidy. At the end of the garden Mr. MacMahon 
has erected a tail house, composed of long twigs 
so tied on rafters as to give partial shade. Beneath, 
sheltered from tbe sun's fiercest rays, are Philoden- 
drons, Anthnrium Scherzerianum, Dracaenas, Marantas 
Gymnostachy um Pearcei, Lomaria gibba, Selaginellas, 
Aspleuiums, Platyceriums, Dicksonia antarctica, Al- 
sophila australis, fiowering Begonias, and a few 
Orchids, chiefly the native Dendrobium undulatum,— 
Garde ners' Ch ro n ic Jc . 
GUTTA-PERCHA IN DUTCH INDIA. 
(TllAN-SLATED FIIOM THE " GUMMI-ZeITUNG.") 
About the year IS15 the first gutta-percha, the 
milk of several tropical trees, appeared in the market, 
The gutta-percha comes almost without exception, 
from the Malay Archipelago, and 'its greater part 
from Dutch India, especially from Borneo and Suma- 
tra. The natives collect his valuable product in the 
virgin forests, whenct it is brought, through Chinese 
buyers, to the Singapore Market. As long as the 
request for it was only a small one, the natives were 
content with getting the gutta-percha by means of 
incisions in the trees, but when the export from 
Singapore, which was in 1845 only 10,140 kilos., and 
in 1848, 720,000 kilos., increased, they began to fell 
the trees, in order to get more sap, without pro- 
viding for the after-growth. The consequence of this 
bad policy, which must have been increasing during 
recent years, cannot be definetely seen from the 
figures of export from Dutch India, which were ; — 
1,598,330 kilos, in 1889 
2,277,326 ,, ,, 1890 
1,402,923 „ „ 1891 
1,201,681 ., „ 1893 
1,270,533 „ „ 1893 
1,281,664 „ „ 1894 
1,347,834 „ „ 1895 
1,337,745 „ „ 1896 
1,448,973 „ „ 1897 
4,361,514 „ „ 189d 
7,263,048 „ „ 1899 
but they are proved through the exhaustion of several 
districts which produced gutta-percha in earlier years. 
If the number of the felled trees can be estimated 
according to the export at some millions, and 
if the export increases in the same proportion f.s 
in recent years, one can imagine how we are draw- 
ing closer to the end of the gufta-percha export, 
whereas the request for this indispensable insulating 
material for telegraphic cable is, on the other hand, 
daily increasing. Dr. W. Burck, at that time sub- 
director of the Botanic Gardens at Buitcnzorg, first 
drew attention to this danger in 1883, when, taking 
an ofiicial journey to the Pandangschen Boveulanden, 
on the west coast of Sumatra, in order to study 
the gutta-percha trees, he noticed the felling of the 
tiees. As an ofiicial law preventing the felling of 
the trees could not be enforced in the districts. Dr. 
Burck proposed a way out of the difficulty by sys- 
tematic cultivation of trees. This proposal found 
approbation with the Dutch-Indian Government, and 
in 1884 Doctors Burck and Treub, now director of 
the Botanical Gardens at Buitenzorg, were commis- 
eioned to find some land not far from Buitenzorg 
auitable for a plantation of gulta-percha trees. They 
chose for this a hilly ground of y25 acres in Tjipetir, 
about 1,640 feet above the saa-level, and at a dis- 
tance of eight miles from the railway station of 
Tjibadak, in the country of Preanger Hill. In ih^ 
