ios 
wounded exude a gum. resin or latex which acts as a protection 
against animal and fungus attacks. 
The orotection is by no means always perfect, as ms “ts ° r u ng' 
occasionally find a way of getting past the barrier Takefo m 
stance Castilloa. This plant is here destroyed by the 'o<yco : 
beetle, Epepseotes luscus. It attacks the plant through the t P 
where a b/anch has fallen, and where there is little or no latex 
once the egg is pushed through into the wood, the larva does not 
come in contact with the latex but bores up and down m the woo 
The part of the tree attacked by it dies and the beetle can escape 
through the wood now unprovided with latex. A tree like this is 
quickly exterminated. The failure of the latex in this case to pro- 
tect the tree means the total destruction of all Castilloas m the 
region in which the beetle lives. Besides wood-boring insects we 
have innumerable fungi which attack dead tissue and can eventual y 
hollow out a tree so that it readily falls. If it is worth while, so to 
say, for the Oncosperma, and thorny sago to develop thorns to pro- 
tect their young shoots from the attacks of pigs, or for the Arenga 
palm to develope the great mass of fibre over the bases of its leaves 
to keep the rain from running down into the sheaths, surely it is 
worth while for a tree to develop a laticiferous system, or a series 
of resin ducts to guard against the common injuries caused by a 
heavy wind, or the fall of a tree near it. 
I would not suggest this as the only function of latex, but rather 
that it is one of the utmost importance to the life of the plant. 
The Conditions in Para. 
It has been pointed out by Wickham, says Mr. Wright that the 
true forests of the Para rubber trees lie back on the highlands and 
those seen by travellers along the river-side are scattered and poor in 
growth and do not give one a fair idea of the conditions under which 
a o-ood growth of the Hevea is obtained. On this statement appa- 
rently an idea got about that Para rubber should not be grown on 
the alluvial flat as it is in the Malay Peninsula but in hilly regions. 
This idea of the Hevea braziliensis growing on hill land has not 
been confirmed by any of the professional Seringueiros from the 
Amazons w r ho have visited the Gardens, nor is it at all confirmed 
by Ule, whom the author quotes. All agree that the lowlying swamp 
in the Singapore Botanic Gardens exactly resembles the home of 
the Para rubber, and that the trees have the same form and growth. 
May it not be that in the districts that Mr. WICKHAM visited all 
the best of the trees on the easily accessible river bank had been 
tapped to death, while those on the more inaccessible highlands had 
escaped. This is what one would expect to happen. 
Manuring and close planting . — The danger of manuring trees by 
the system of digging trenches and so cutting through the roots as 
recommended by Mr. WRIGHT has been already pointed out in the 
Bulletin, as has the principle of close planting either of Para rubber 
trees or Dadups or any other trees and then cutting out. No inter- 
ference with or cutting the roots of a Para rubber tree should be 
