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too, Malacca is in a more flourishing state than it has been since 
the time of Albuquerque and so wealthy have the Chinese there 
become that they have even largely increased the sale of town 
land in Singapore by their investment there. Twenty years ago 
there was a bank in Malacca but it had long died of inanition ; now 
we understand there are three, and that Malacca is again becoming 
an important town. It is interesting to note that the first practical 
planter in the rubber industry was a Chinaman in Malacca, Mr. Tan 
Chay Yan, who led off with his estate at Bukit Lintang. Mr. T. 
Heslop Hill, however, our pioneer planter, had a fine lot of Para rub- 
ber trees much earlier, though nothing was done with them till later. 
There has been a slight tendency we find among Chinese, and 
in or two cases among Europeans to abolish coconuts for rubber. 
This seems to be a mistake. It is by no means desirable that any 
country should depend entirely on one product, and this is especially 
the case in dealing with trees which are of slow growth. The rush of 
planters to one cultivation leading to the abandonment of others 
naturally causes a rise of price in the latter and sooner or later they 
come in again. We note with interest the reappearance of gambier 
and pepper again in Singapore during the last year. We note too 
the appearance of two more parasitic fungi on our rubber trees, the 
dangerous black Diplodia rapax, and the Hymenochaete. Compara- 
tively little attention has been paid to the former. The treatment 
for Fomes by the more up-to-date planters will equally dispose of the 
Hymenocnaete. 
Many planters are now stubbing their estates with a view of 
destroying the parasitic root-fungi remaining in the ground from the 
relics of the original forest trees, and ploughing both with the native 
plough and disc-ploughs is being also resorted to. Curiously there 
has been rather a reversion in feeling towards the formerly despised 
lalang land, owing to its being quite free of underground wood and 
roots, likely to carry fungi. 
In manufacture the notable thing is the return to smoked rubber, 
this form having obtained very high prices during the year. In 
1898 and following years rubber was commonly smoked but later the 
clear amber coloured biscuits took the fancy of the trade and the 
darker coloured smoked rubber was at a discount. The increase in 
output of rubber from the East is given by Messrs. Gow Wilson and 
Stanton as 2,252 tons from the Peninsula in 1909, as against 250% in 
1906, and 4J2 tons from Ceylon in 1909, against 98% in I 9 ° 6 » the 
Malay Peninsula having increased its output nine times, and Ceylon 
four and a half times. 
* Since writing the above we learn that the low price of tapioca 
has been a considerable factor in the increase of rubber growing 
among the Chinese, as the tapioca growers find that at the present 
price it does not pay. The Dutch and Javanese, we learn from Mr. de 
