68 
undertake to use the Indian product when grown, and to the cul- 
tivator the Government is to guarantee interest on capital for a 
period of so many years, to carry out the necessary experiments 
on the undertaking that if they are successful the cultivator will 
annually grow a fibre of right quality to a given weight. A discus- 
sion followed the paper. 
Though exception may be taken to some parts of the paper, it is 
worth the attention of Ramie growers and others interested in 
cultivation generally. 
GUTTA PERCHA IN THE PHILIPPINES. 
Mr. Sherman’s Report. 
A Bulletin by Mr. P. L. Sl-IERMAN, Chemist in the Bureau of 
Government Laboratories, Manila, on the Gutta Percha and Rubber 
of the Philippine Islands, carefully reviews the subject both from 
a commercial as well as scientific point of view. 
Mr. SHERMAN has collected information in all the principal gutta 
producing countries and naturally concludes that the future of gutta- 
percha lies in plantations Under this head he remarks “ The prin- 
cipal gutta-percha plantations now under cultivation and in which 
much useful and desired experimenting is being done are located at 
Tjipitir and Buitenzorg in Java, on Rhio Island at Singapore and 
Bukit Timah on Singapore Island, on Penang Island, and at one 
or two places in the Federated Malay States. 
Enough time and work have been spent to demonstrate most con- 
clusively that gutta-percha trees can be raised not only succ , e ^ fu ^ 
but also without much trouble or great outlay of money, and a ht 
nations having tropical possessions m the East, except the L uted 
States have made a start toward gutta-percha plantation, but t 
Dutch are the only ones so far who have gone into it on a grand scale 
and unless appearances are deceitful they will have a monopo yo 
the plantations of the gutta-percha of the future, as sure as 
have on the forest gutta-percha of the present day. 
R. D, 
ZALACCA CONFERTA. 
This palm is very abundant in the Malay Peninsula, and is well 
known SndeV the names of Asam Faya and 
jungle swamps, and is almost stemlep with large and h > d > 
thickets of the plant being almost unpenetrable. The truit is pro 
duced in a deL head About a foot or more long, eadi being 
about 2 inches long and covered with yellow collected 
inside is covered with a very acid pulp, rhese fruit. { j 
nul sold by Malays for the acid pulp ol which they see n . 
a d indeed acid as they are they form not a bad thirst T'cmchc . 
Mr. DOWN* of the Hongkong Botanic Gardens late y 
of one of these fruits which are imported into China, an 
