40 
better obtained by machinery and as there are already oil-mills in 
Singapore, should the plant^e cultivated in sufficient quantity, it 
would pay best to send the oil-seeds direct to the factory. 
A machine has been invented f in Germany which hurls the seeds 
against a plate with such force as to break them and set free the 
kernel, and this machine is found to be a very satisfactory working 
one. 
The kernel oil is more highly valued than that of the husk and i s 
always in demand. 
There seems no doubt, that this plant may well be worth planting 
for the sake of its seeds and oil pulp in the Malay Peninsula, as*it 
requires really hardly any attention except in actual planting and 
gathering the seed. 
The plate we give represents a fine oil-palm in the Botanic 
Gardens, Singapore, on which is seen a fine specimen of the birds- 
nest fern Thamnopteris Nidus -Avis. 
H. N. R. 
NOTES ON THE CEYLON RUBBER 
EXHIBITION SEPTEMBER, 1906. 
' The Ceylon Rubber Exhibition owes its unqualified success to 
various factors. It was the first of its kind and held at a time 
when interest in rubber tultivation was very great, and at a time 
when many scientific and practical men were busily considering 
the improvements in methods of cultivation and preparation. 
It was held in perhaps the most suitable place in the British tropical 
agricultural possessions, Peradeniya, where Science has been 
helping agriculture in a more successful way than any other place 
except perhaps Java/ in what are considered by many the most 
beautiful gardens of the world, with a climate not hot to allow of 
the strenuous work of properly examining such an exhibition. 
Arrangements were made that hll departments in the cultivation 
and preparation of rubber for the market should be represented. 
The beauty and situation of the buildings were such as could 
probably not be contrived in any other country in the world, and 
His Excellency the Governor, Sir Henry Blake, by his constant 
interest in the arrangements, made certain that every thing would be 
done as well as was possible. 
The present position of the rubber growing industry in its 
infancy tended greatly towards a common helpfulness between all 
those who attended. When an industry has been in progress for many 
years, new ideas however good are apt to be stifled by the wet 
blanket of old experience with its unwillingness to be improved 
upon by younger men. In the case of rubber cultivation at present 
the democratic feeling of equality in knowledge helps to a free 
exchange of information in which all give and gain. 
