70 
RUBBER FLAXTIXG IX CEYLOX 
In spite of the midday scorching sun, in which all of my spare 
clothing was spread to kill the mildew, 1 took a rickshaw and rode 
out over Orchard Road to the botanic gardens. I was most hospitably 
received by Director Henry X. Ridley, f. l. s., and shown all of the 
various rubber and gutta trees and vines that he has so industriously 
collected. The Hevca was naturally my first concern, and I found Mr. 
Ridley most willing to talk about it, as he has long advocated its very 
general planting, and certainly the soil is excellent and the trees respond 
to cultivation wonderfully. From one hundred cultivated trees on an 
estate in Perak, Mr. Ridley has taken nine hundred pounds of Para 
rubber in one season's tapping, and from nine to twelve pounds have been 
taken from a number of trees in the peninsula, but planters do not always 
SHOOTS FROM A FALLEN HEVEA TRUNK. 
[With view of Director H. N. Ridley.] 
get such returns. He has also taken three pounds from a single isolated 
three-vear old tree. The growth here is phenomenal, a tree eighteen 
months old sometimes standing thirty feet high, while three-year-olds 
often attain a height of sixty feet. I found in these gardens the Hevea 
growing in a variety of soils, and all apparently thrifty. For example, 
high up on a gravelly hillside, were a half hundred trees that were eight or 
ten years old, and sixteen to eighteen inches in diameter. These were 
planted in partial shade, but had outdistanced all surrounding growths. 
The other extreme from this was a large planting where there were 
but six inches of soil above water, the soil being often submerged but 
draining oft' very quickly. Here the trees grew well, but were apt to 
