4o5 
alluded lo previously. It would be very satisfactory to hear from 
the various District Officers what amount of cultivation the Malays 
in the different districts were doing and how far some such scheme 
as the proposed one would be likely to increase the agriculture. 
Editor. 
FRUITING OF TRAVELLERS TREE. 
In the Bulletin for September, I notice that you have heard of 
no case of the travellers tree ( Ravenala Madagascariensis ) flower- 
ing or fruiting in the Straits. It may interest you to know that 
it did both in the Waterfall Garden, Penang, last year. The seeds 
were sown, but up to the time I left had not germinated. I thought 
at the time, and still think, that the seeds were not quite ripe at 
the time of gathering. In Madagascar this is a most common 
plant in places near the coast. I have seen it growing in great 
abundance within a short distance of Tamatave, and in other 
places. Almost anything from the coast of Madagascar does well 
in the Straits. Flame of the Forest, is another of the Madagascar 
things that is largely planted in Penang, as well as in other Malay- 
an countries. Few residents, except those interested in botany, 
realises how many of the showy plants in their gardens, and by the 
roadside, are introduced plants, and how few properly belong to 
the Malayan region 
C. CURTIS. 
'I'he Editor 
Agricultural Bulletin. 
RAINFALL IN LONDON AND PENANG. 
A Comparison. 
From every district in the British Isles come reports of excessive 
rainfall in the present year; but in the metropolis and the Thames 
Valley the excess has been apparently greater than elsewhere. The 
following is a comparative statement of the rainfall in London as 
against that for Penang from 1 880 to October, 1903. 
The } early fall is given from 1880 to 1882 and from 1895 to 
1902, the average from 1883 to 1902 and the total from 1st January 
to 31st October, 1903. From the statement it will be seen that 
Penafig is far ahead of London, and the damage caused by our 
rains is simply nil as compared to London and its suburbs as 
gathered from the English papers. 
But while Londoners and many others have been bewailing rainy 
skies and frequent down-pours (as we Penangites have written the 
past 3 months) they, the Londoners, have only to turn their atten- 
tion, says the British Medical Journal, to another spot in England, 
Borrowdale, at the head of the Derwent water, below Seaffell, to 
& 
