AND THE MALAY STATES 
49 
FOURTH LETTER. 
Rubber Trees and Tapping at Culloden — Night Tapping — Rubber Curing 
House — Oil from Hevea Nuts — Cost ok Para Rubber at Colombo — Arapola- 
kanda Estate — Smoking Ceylon Rubber — Sunnycroft Estate — Enemies of 
the Hevea — A Touch of Fever — The Forest Conservator — A Paddy Field 
Experience. 
A T the dose of ray first clay at Culloden, when the sun had dropped 
low enough to make it fairly comfortable in the open, at Mr. 
HarrisoiVs invitation, we started out to see the rubber. The 
plantation is primarily for tea, the rubber having been planted later 
through the tea and also in some of the valleys. The land is very rocky, 
ironstone abounding, but there must be something in the soil that 
suits the Hevea , for it flourished wonderfully. The only place where 
it did not appear to do well was in very low ground, where there was 
no drainage. The swampy portions of the land have, therefore, been 
thoroughly drained ; indeed, where some of the seven and eight year 
old rubber now is there had once been a bog where cattle were wont 
to get mired. The rubber on this soil, which w r as very rich, had some 
three feet of drainage. Of course, it was to be expected that the Hevea 
would grow in such soil as this, but I must confess that I w r as amazed 
to see it flourishing far up on rocky hillsides,, and sending its laterals in 
all directions for food. The Hevea has proved itself, in Ceylon at least, 
a most voracious surface feeder, and in this connection it is worth while 
to examine the illustration of the uprooted tree held erect between two 
cocoanut palms, with the laterals stretched right and left, showing a 
growth longer than the tree trunk itself. The photograph from which 
my illustration was made was taken by Mr. J. B. Carruthers, and is most 
graphic. 
The tapping of the trees begins just as soon as it is light in the 
morning, for through the middle of the day the latex does not flow 
freely, but starts up again about four in the afternoon and is continued 
until dark. The trees are tapped when they show a girth of two feet, 
without regard to their age. No ladders or supports are used in tapping, 
as it wasn't found profitable to tap higher than a coolie can reach while 
standing on the ground. The tool is a very simple V-shaped knife with 
two cutting edges, and a single slanting cut about eight inches long has 
been found to be best, a tin cup being placed under the lower end of 
