302 
year, but the planter expects to get 6 lbs. by scraping the bark. 
The Para tree varies a good deal in the amount of return it gives 
according to its position, size, etc. Trees at Kamuning Estate 
about the same age as the Culloden ones are giving, I understan , 
some as much as 8 lbs. and the average 4 lbs. per tapping. 
As the rubber on the Culloden Estate is only rolled out by hand 
rollers, it is not surprising to hear it takes a month to six weeks o 
dry. Acetic acid is used, and the biscuits are first dried over a 
charcoal fire for 3 or 4 hours, and then transferred to a drying 
room and air dried. The use of heat in rubber drying is objec- 
tionable as the fibre of the rubber deteriorates with it. 
M. Octave Collet who has recently in Singapore expressed 
himself very pleased with the Malay Peninsula rubber, stating that 
the texture was much superior to that of the rubber turned out m 
Ceylon which was less elastic and more resembled recovered rub- 
ber than new first class stuff. This is probably more due to bad 
methods of preparation than to any inherent defect m the Ceylon 
rubber. 
In Mr. HOLLOWAY’S account {India Rubber Journal ') of his 
methods of preparation of biscuits, he states that he does not use 
acetic acid or any chemicals but dries only with hot air. The cakes 
are rolled out with the clumsy rolling-pin, and take two months to 
dry without hot air and three weeks with it. The average pnee of 
his rubber sold in I 9°3 was 4 / 4 l^- Editor. 
FIBRE PLANTS OF THE MALAY PENINSULA. 
It may seem somewhat remarkable thaf in a country so rich m 
fibre plants and so suitable for their culture, so little has been done 
or attempted even in the cultivation or preparation of these fibres 
for trade purposes. Except in the case ol ramie, little interest 
seems to have ever been taken in the subject. 
To a large extent perhaps this apathy is due to the fact that for 
some classes of fibres cheap labour is required, which has never 
been procurable here, while the machinery which has occasionally 
been imported for working the fibres lias often proved unsuccessful, 
which in some cases has been due to ignorance on the part of the 
importer. 
The fibre trade is one of considerable fluctuation, and the profits 
not as larore as the prospective ones of rubber, and in the old days 
of coffee, *s Li 11 many fibres might be grown and worked to pay as 
catch-crops, while the rubber were growing and it would be quite 
possible to induce the natives to collect and prepare many of the 
native and half wild fibres if only some encouragement were given 
to them in the way of farming markets where they could sell then- 
produce at a reasonable profit. 
The number of fibre producing plants which are wild or can be 
successfully cultivated in the Malay Peninsula is large, and an ac- 
count of them may be of interest to the readers of the Bulletin, 
