36 
ted for all Gutta Percha producing trees. This recommendation was 
acted upon. 
The rules were also amended and the felling of trees for the ex- 
traction of the latex was prohibited. In addition to these precau- 
tions departmental instructions were issued to the effect that no 
licences for the extraction of Gutta Percha were to be issued. At 
the present time therefore it must be difficult to collect Gutta Percha 
and export it in sufficient quantities to make it pay. That a certain 
amount of smuggling goes on, I have no doubt, from the fact that 
2 or 3 cases have come to light in which Chinamen were found in 
possession of small quantities and were convicted of the offence. 
Since 1902 the staff of the Forest Department has been greatly 
increased, and I have reason to believe that the Government have 
done and are now doing all that is in their power to assist in the 
preservation of this valuable product. 
As regards measures for protection from other causes of destruc- 
tion, such as alienation of land fof mining and agriculture, the only 
plan is to reserve all the valuable Palaquium areas, constituting 
them forest reserves wherever possible, without interfering with 
valuable tin bearing land. We already have an area of about 
60,000 acres reserved, fairly rich in young Palaquium chiefly in 
'Perak and Selangor, and probably as much more remains to be 
taken up in Pahang and elsewhere. 
Again before any large area of land is alienated the department 
is referred to, and if alienation takes place in spite of the presence 
of Palaquium we are given the opportunity of taking away the 
young plants and transplanting them into reserved areas. In the 
course of time, when all forest reservation has reached its natural 
limit, Palaquium is bound to disappear from areas outside, nor does 
this matter, as it is only practically possible to watch defined areas 
when placed completely under the control of the Forest Department. 
The exploitation of the Gutta Percha areas will only be possible 
in reserved forests in a regular manner, areas being taken in hand 
annually. 
The natural regeneration of Palaquium as already stated is very 
good, but growth is slow and assistance must be given. Our object 
now is to encourage only t lie best species, l\ oblongifolium and 
Gutl<i . Regular plantations, i. c. t planting in cleared areas from 
seed is at present impossible in these States as 110 seed is available. 
The method followed by the Forest Department here is to cut 
lines through the dense undergrowth in the forest reserves, taking 
up regular areas in turn, and to transplant into these lines young 
Palaquium seedlings taken from outside the reserve in forests that 
cannot for various causes be protected, or taken from groups 
inside the reserve where fhey are growing too close, together. At 
the present time we have an area more than 1,000 acres so planted 
in Selangor. 
In the Trollah reserve in Perak, Palaquium seedlings are so 
numerous in the seedling and pole stage, that planting over a 
