549 
FICUS BRACTEATA. 
Editor, 
In reference to your note in August Bulletin in regard to 
Ficus bracteata there is a""big spreading tree of this in the Kuala ’ 
Lumpur Gardens, just a little way past the plant house. It was 
evidently growing there before the ground was converted into a 
garden. I collected specimens from this last May, and noted at 
the time, “ large spreading tree." If you are that way again, look 
for it and you will see there is nothing of the shrub about the 
old veteran, 
C CURTIS, 
Rubber, a new industry in Guatemala, 
From the Diplomatic and Consular report on Guatemala for 
tgoi, the following is extracted : — 
The cultivation of the rubber tree and the export of the product 
is a growth entirely of the last few years, and it is undoubtedly an 
industry which is admirably suited to the coast districts of the 
Republic, and should more than make up for the apparently per- 
manent falling-off in the coffee-growing industry. Coffee, it has 
now been found may be grown with ease in all countries when a 
certain temperature prevails, and the consumption does not in» 
crease in proportion to the supply ; while, on the other hand, good 
rubber is as yet only obtainable in a few parts of the world, and 
the demand increases every day, and this demand seems likely to 
go on increasing with every new invention and improvement in 
almost every branch of the manufacturing industries. 
It is therefore worth the while of those who are considering the 
advisability of a planter's life in tropical countries, to enquire into 
the details of rubber planting, at any rate, so far as Central Ame- 
rica is concerned, where concessions of land are easily obtainable at 
very cheap rates, and where the huge markets of the United States 
he so close at hand. 
It must be remembered, of course, that the returns are consider- 
ably longer in coming in than in many crops, for rubber takes ten 
years to yield a Tull crop. A person thoroughly acquainted with 
these subjects recently explained to me that the method he would 
follow would be to plant a grove of, say, 100,000 plants, which at 
the end of five years would yield a certain crop, say one-third of 
what fuliy matured trees should yield. At the end of the fifth 
year, the plants should be thinned down to half their number, or 
50,000, on these 50,000 trees of five years old a handsome sum 
would be realised which would entirely repay the original outlay, 
the running expenses being paid by the cultivation of some such 
fruit as the barfana, thus leaving the planter at the end of five 
vears with all his outlay paid, and a grove in his possession yield- 
ing a larger product every year, and the expenses of his plantation 
paid by the secondary crop of bananas. 
