592 
evaporated off the dry rubber weighed lb. The result of this 
experiment is rather important from a financial point of view as it 
has been pretty generally stated that no return from plantations 
of these trees could be expected till the 8th or 9th year; whereas 
it is quite evident they are ready for tapping at the 7th year, and 
that trees planted at 1 5 feet apart, i. e, 193 to the acre would yield 
48 lbs. rubber per acre, value about £6 at the seventh year. 
A number of young plants of this rubber tree were planted out 
in the Botanic Gardens, Singapore, in the early part of this year 
in a rather clayey slope in the Economic Gardens and in spite of 
the prolonged drought of this year have made excellent growth. 
The plants being now five feet high and very strong and leafy. 
Plants of Payena Leerii on the adjoining land planted at the same 
time are not nearly so well advanced. No insect has attacked 
them, nor has Meliola so very common in this country done any 
harm to them. Should this tree continue to grow as well as it has 
begun to do, we may certainly add it to our stock of cultivatable 
rubber, 
II. N. R. 
PARA RUBBER. 
As in the near future it will be necessary on some estates, where 
planting has been done thickly with the intention of thinning by 
means of tapping to death at an early stage a portion of the crop, 
the result obtained from four small trees growing in a nursery in 
connection with the Botanic Gardens, Pinang, may be of interest. 
In 1885 a seed bed was formed and when the plants were removed 
five were left standing in a space not exceeding 4x4 feet. Under 
such conditions development has necessarily been slow but one 
tree, as might naturally be expected, has outstripped the others 
in the race and now has a girt of 27 inches at five feet from the 
ground. This tree has not been tapped but the other four were 
tapped in 1901, two of them severely, but no proper account was 
kept of the rubber obtained. This year it was decided to tap them 
again and if possible to kill them, but although barbarously hacked 
they show no sign of dying and in fact look just as green as the 
one that has not been tapped at all. The measurements of these 
trees at five feet from the ground are 22 inches, 20 inches, 18 in- 
ches and 1 6 inches, or an average of 19 inches for each tree. The 
amount of rubber obtained, prepared in thin sheets and quite dry, 
is nine ounces, and scrap rubber, that is rubber that coagulated in 
the cuts or on the tree and collected quite clean, four ounces, or 
thirteen ounces in all. The largest quantity of sheet rubber ob- 
tained atone operation was 1 oz, and the number of times the 
tapping was done twenty-six. The cost of collecting the rubber 
from such small trees will not I am afraid leave any great margin 
of profit. In the present case the work was done by a small Tamil 
boy who was living on the spot, and I cannot say exactly how long 
