440 
5. This should be done exactly in the same way as for vegeta- 
ble or flower seed which requires transplanting 
ovvmg ' after germination. The figs are broken between 
the hands. As the seed is very minute, the particles of the fruit 
are left with the seed and sown with it, no attempt being made to 
clean or separate the pulverized figs. In order to distribute these 
minute seeds evenly over the seed beds or boxes, a certain quan- 
tity of ash and soil is mixed with them. 
6. Germination takes place from the end of April to the end of 
G , the rains. Seed sown between October and 
January requires daily watering and screening 
from the sun, and will not germinate before the end of April or 
the beginning of May, but seed sown any time during the rains 
will germinate in a few days (from five days to a fortnight). It 
follows that the best time for sowing seed is during the rains — 
that is from June to September. 
The embryo appears on the germination of the seed as a seed- 
ling having a pair of opposite cotyledons with an entire margin des- 
titute of incisions or appendage of any kind, with the exception of 
the notched or emarginate apex, oval in general outline, green in 
colour and of a glassy smoothness. The second pair of leaves show 
a tendency to the alternate arrangement on the stem but appear 
at the same time. Their shape and venation are very different 
from those of the primary leaves, for they have a centra! midrib 
and a distinctly coarsely-crenated margin. The third pairs of 
leaves do not appear simultaneously, and are distinctly alternate, 
with a marked reddish colour : after this the plant is easily 
recognized. 
7. When the seedlings are one to two inches high in the seed 
beds or boxes, they should be transplanted into 
Pricking out. nursery beds, and put out in lines about a foot 
from each other. The nursery beds should be well-raised and 
drained, but the soil need not be so carefully prepared as for the 
seed beds. Here the plants are kept till the following rains, when 
they are dug up and taken to stockaded nurseries in tiie forest, and 
put out 5' x 5' on raised well-drained beds, where they remain for 
two years till they are required for planting operations. 
8. Almost every animal will eat the young rubber plants; it is, 
therefore, impossible to plant out small seed- 
Forest nurseries. lings * n t ] ie f ores (- dwing to the destruction by 
wild elephants and game unless each individual plant is carefully 
fenced in. As this is too costly, and the rubber after it is one to two 
feet in height is very hardy and can be transplanted, with ordinary 
care, at any time of the year (the best time in Assam is between 
May and July), the seedlings are kept in stockaded nurseries in 
the forest where planting operations are to take place, and remain 
there till they are 10 or 12 feet high, that is, about three years 
after germination, when they are dug out and the roots are cut 
back 18 inches right around the plant and planted on the mounds 
in the forests. 
