3^9 
He was employed as assistant in the Botanic Gardens, Singapore, 
temporarily, from June I, 1902, to July 1903, and conducted a num- 
ber of experiments in rubber tapping and preparing in these days, 
adding a great deal to our knowledge. He left to take charge of the 
Kamuning Estate at Sungei Siput, and in 1909 took charge of the 
United Rubber Estates in Singapore. 
He had a very good knowledge of rubber work and was very 
ingenious in inventing various improvements, and was frequently a 
correspondent to the Bulletin He possessed also some knowledge of, 
and interest in, ethnology and botany, and his name has been associa- 
ted with the grand palin Borassus Machadonis , the only really 
indigenous palm of that group Borassineae in Asia, and Saccolabium 
Machadonis , etc. — E d. 
Mr. J. B. Carruthers. 
It is with the deepest regret that we have to record the sad death 
of Mr. J. B. Carruthers in Trinidad on July 2lst from, it is said, 
Septicpneumonia. 
The loss of so excellent an agriculturist at so early an age as 
fortyone is a serious loss to the whole world of tropical Agriculture. 
Mr. John Bennett Carruthers was the second son of Mr. William 
Carruthers, formerly head of the Botanic Department of the British 
Museum, a botanist well-known for his palaco-botanical and agricul- 
tural work. 
Mr. J. B. Carruthers was educated at Dulwich College and the 
Royal School of Mines and at Greifswald University in Prussia. He 
became demonstrator of Botany in the Royal Veterinary College, 
London, in 1892, and Professor of Botany at the College of Dowton, 
Wiltshire, 1894, and in 1898 went to Ceylon to investigate the disease 
of cocoa under the joint auspices of the Government and Ceylon 
Planters' Association, and was appointed Mycologist to the Govern- 
ment of Ceylon and assistant director of the Peradeniya Gardens. 
While here he did good work in research into diseases of cocoa and 
in other agricultural work. 
In 1905 he was appointed Director of Agriculture and Government 
Botanist in the Federated Malay States and founded the Kuala 
Lumpur Experimental Gardens. He was co-editor of this Bulletin 
and contributed papers to it, besides publishing extensive annual 
reports on the work in agriculture in the F.M.S. 
He resigned this position to go to Trinidad last year, and com- 
menced work there in the matters of rubber and cocoa, when his 
untimely death cut him off in his prime. 
H. N. Ridley. 
