52 
fects les^ ( This however one may be permitted to doubt). He con- 
siders that . metre 50 c. is as high as it .s necessary to go m tap 
pi, cr The system adopted is to make vertical incisions 20 centime- 
res' apart with lateral cuts 10 centimetres long on one side. The 
following year the lateral cuts are to be made on the other side o 
‘he vertfeal groove, on the third year between the cuts on the hrst 
side and on the fourth between those made in the second year (ap- 
parently the vertical groove is thus to be kept open for lour years, 
which would certainly be liable to injure the tree). The incisions 
are renewed every second day by a slice off the lower edge. I his 
is done ten times; so that the tapping takes 20 davs accordmg to 
the skill of the worker a man can tap from 6 to to trees. I he re 
newal of the cuts more than 10 times has not succeeded at Soebang 
though at Buitenzorg they have been able to do tt for hfteen times 
ndtret a bioger return after the tenth time. The biggest flo« 
comes after the 6th reopening of the cut. The preparation ot the 
rubber is effected by a modiHcation of the well-known Amazons 
method, with a paddle-shaped instrument coated with clay and the 
lumps of rubber so formed take 2 or 3 weeks to dry. The '47_ tr ^ 
supplied with ten reopenings of the wound a total of 5 - kg. 3 ( 4 
lbs 75 < r rains) of dry smoked rubber, and 17.9 (37 lbs >' 133 g ra, " ! ') 
of scrap altogether' 1 5 I lbs. Eighty-two of the trees were recu 
,5 times but the results of the last live tappings were very small 
9 TTie^cost^of tapping and preparation of 78 kg. 4 of the rubber 
was 58 Guilders, or roughly 37 cents a P ound - 
/ flu- value of the rubber is not stated, but from the method of 
preparation it was probably of inferior quality, and the amount 
obtained from each tree a little over a pound is smaller than it 
should be The tapping system also leaves much to be desired, but 
it seems that these trees under proper treatment might give a re- 
turn equal to that of those of the Malay Peninsula.) 
Editor . 
CAPE-INIA CONCHYLALIS. 
Royal Botanic Gardens, 
Peradeniya Ceylon, 
20th December , 1903. 
H. N. Ridley Esq., 
Director of Botanic Gardens , Singapore, 
n Sir— I have just seen your note, in the Straits agricultural 
Bulletin for November, 1903, on Caprinia Conchylalis as a pest of the 
Kicksia Rubber [Funtumia elastica). 
It may interest you to know that this same insect is very troublc- 
in Ceylon It completely defoliates our Kicksia plants, twice 
WW the vear’, each attack extending over two or three months, 
' May to July and November to December. Not only are the 
