281 
In India, it is stated that T. taprobanis, Walk, an ally of T. 
Malayanus is very destructive, devouring stacks of com, etc., 
and young unhealthy plants, and may be the white ant which 
destroys the sugar cane, burrowing into and destroying the sets 
as soon as planted eating “through the junction between the 
young plant and parent set so that the latter withers off. The 
remedy always applied is Castor-cake” which is applied powder- 
ed to the roots of the canes to the amount of between 1,500 lbs. 
and 2,000 lbs. per acre, chiefly as manure but it also keeps off 
white ants (Agricultural Ledger.) . 
I have found it sometimes very difficult to get rid of T . Ma- 
lay anus especially where it has made its nest beneath a road, 
where it is very troublesome, forming cavities beneath which 
‘ collapse suddenly when a horse passes over it. The nest may be 
dug out, and the queen destroyed by a fire made in the cavity 
and tar, etc., poured in, yet the nest is again and again re- 
constructed. Very often however they will go away if decaying 
animal matter, such as night-soil is poured into the ground where 
j the nest is. 
para rubber NOTES, XI, 
Mr. Curtis, in the annual Report of the Penang Gaidens for 
1808 makes some remarks on his observations and experiments 
on the Para Rubber trees in the Penang Gardens, which are 
worth the attention of those interested in Rubber cultivation 
and as the annual Gardens reports seldom find their way into 
the hands of planters I reproduce the notes. He writes 
“I have again tapped the best tree in the garden from which 
1 lb. of rubber was taken during the rainy season of June, 1897. 
A sample of this was subsequently sent to Kew and submitted to 
Messrs Hecht Lewis and Khan, for valuation, who reported it 
as “beautiful rubber, very well cured worth to-day (31.8.98 
3-3 per lb.” This had simply been dried in the sun and kept m 
the office for about a year. Being planted on dry gravelly soil 
this tree grows less rapidly here than those that aie planted in 
moister and more suitable soil in Perak and elsewhere. At two- 
and- a-half feet from the ground it forks and the main stem mea- 
sured at three feet from the ground in June, 1897? had a giith of 
thirty-six inches. Measured again in Decembei, 1898, after an 
interval of 18 months, it had increased five inches in girth and 
the cuts had quite healed up. This tree is 13 years old. dhis 
time the tapping was commenced on the 16th November which 
is generally about the end of the heavy rains, but there is here 
no season which can be counted on as absolutely diy as in Bur- 
mah and India, and, in fact, rain fell frequently while the opera- 
tion was carried on, which was spread ovei a period of 
thirty-four days. Oblique cuts leading to perpendicular chan- 
nels were made in six places subsequently increased to seven, at 
the bases of which were fixed by means of a lump of clay and a 
nail small tins to receive the latex. An ordinary carpenter’s 
