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and collected in tins which he describes nearly two years before Mr. 
Parkin discovered the method of making it in this manner, and it 
was by no means the first sample sent home to the rubber dealers 
from the Straits. 
Rubber grown by Mr. Tan Chay Yan, the first practical rubber 
planter in the Colony, was exhibited at the Malacca show in 1898. 
This was the first Para rubber shown for competition from the 
Straits. It was grown in Malacca at Bukit Lintang. 
In Mr. Derry’s report of Government Plantations in Perak 1897, 
he says : 
“Many trees have been tapped and a report on the work 
submitted. The rubber obtained is not yet sufficiently smoked for 
sending home, but samples have been valued in Mincing Lane at 2/8 
and 3/- a pound and considered equal to the best Brazilian produced 
rubber and also worth I /- a pound more than that usually sent home 
from the Straits. He gives also a number of figures of returns from 
trees of various ages.” He sent home in 1899 the first large parcel 
of Para rubber from the Malay Peninsula ; it realised £61. I. 6. 
Willis’ “ Agriculture in the Tropics,” which we do not intend to 
review here, only gives an account of Tropical Agriculture as 
seen in Ceylon, Economic plants not cultivated or of importance 
there are scrappily and often inaccurately described (e.g. Sago, 
Ipecacuanha.) It is apparently not intended for a general work 
on Agriculture in the tropical regions, and this is doubtless the 
reason why the work with Para rubber done in the Straits Settlements 
is entirely ignored. Unfortunately it is clear from the journals 
which quote from it that the readers are under the impression that 
the account of the development of the rubber industry in Ceylon, 
as given by Mr. Willis, gives the whole history of the rise of the 
industry in the East which is far from being the case. 
Practically nothing was done in Ceylon to push the industry or 
to experiment with the Para rubber trees from 1888 to 1897. Even 
the stock of trees at the Gardens seems to have been hardly 
increased. Meanwhile, at Singapore, as far as was possible, every- 
thing had been got ready for the development of the future industry. 
A large number, about 1,400 trees, had been planted to supply the 
stock of seed, a good many dispersed to various parts of the Peninsula, 
to District Officers and planters. Experiments in tapping in various 
forms had been made, wound-response had been re-discovered, block 
and biscuit rubber had been made, specimens exhibited at exhibitions, 
distributed to various persons and institutions interested in planting, 
and sent to rubber dealers who had valued it at the top price of the 
market (1896), while a number of experiments in growth and flow of 
latex had been tried. There is still in the Botanic Gardens museum 
a biscuit dated 1890. It was coagulated without acid and is now 
quite hard and stiff, though still light in colour, a pale yellowish 
white. The specimens dated 1893 and 1894 are black and are now 
showing signs of deterioration, but still fairly sound and elastic. 
