6 4 
RUBBER PLANTING IN CEYLON 
the planting interests in Ceylon, and whose opinions on rubber are 
most sound. In the course of conversation, he acknowledged that 
he and his coworkers were continually on the outlook for the 
appearance of disease in the rubber. He said that wher- 
ever large areas of anything were cultivated, nature came forward 
with some disease or pest. He believed, however, that intelligence and 
vigilance would keep such visitations at least under control. I asked 
him specifically about his idea of distances in planting rubber, and his 
conclusions were almost identical with my own, that it was well to 
plant closely at first, that weeds and grass might be kept down, and 
perhaps cut out the weaklings later. Of course, in planting through 
tea no such close setting can be indulged in. 
My visit to Ceylon was drawing rapidly to a close, as I was booked 
to sail on the Bengal on the 20th. Any further excursions that I took 
into the country were, therefore, of minor importance, and of adven- 
tures I had none except that little affair with the water buffalo. It 
came about through my desire to see a paddy field at close range. I 
was some little way out of town, and stepping down off the roadway 
walked out on the narrow bank of clayey mud that separated one rice 
plot from another. There were hundreds of these plots and miles of 
narrow earthworks, and 1 had gotten some distance out, when a huge 
water buffalo, wallowing in the mud, made up his mind that I was an 
intruder, and started for me. As he weighed about a ton, and knew 
the country anyhow, I didn’t stop to argue, but raced back for the road. 
I am considered a pretty fair runner, but I verily believe that the beast 
would have caught me if it hadn’t been for a native who ran out with a 
switch and headed him off. The absurd part of it was that my rescuer 
was a mite of a boy, his only clothing being a red string round his waist, 
but he certainly knew the proper profanity to apply to water buffaloes. 
By the way, speaking of paddy fields, it seems a shame that the 
very best land of Ceylon should be given up to the culture of rice. If 
those same fields were drained and planted to Para rubber, there is no 
doubt but that they would show an infinitely bigger profit, even if those 
who turned them into rubber orchards paid, as an annual rental, the 
amount of rice that they are supposed to produce. 
