FEDERATED MALAY STATES. 
Report of the Director of Agriculture for the Year 19*0. 
The year has been marked by numerous changes in the staff 
of the Department of Agriculture. The resignations were Director 
of Agriculture and Mycologist, Mr. W. J. Gallagher, on 1st June; 
Mr.J.W. Campbell, Superintendent of Government Plantations and 
Assistant to the Director, on 23rd June; and Mr. F. R. Long, Super- 
intendent of Government Plantations, Perak, on 30th June. I he 
new officers are —Director of Agriculture, assumed duties, 13th 
November; Mr. B. J. Eaton, Agricultural Chemist, transferred to this 
Department, 1st October; Mr. C. K. Bancroft, Assistant Mycologist 
assumed duties, 8th August; Mr. C. B. Holman-Hunt, Assistant 
Entomologist, transferred to this Department, 1st December; Mr. 
F. G. Spring, Superintendent of Government Plantations, assumed 
duties, 2rst October; Mr. C. E. B. Pratt, Assistant Inspector of 
Coconut Plantations, assumed duties, ilth May; and Mr. W. L. 
Wood, Superintendent of Government Plantations, Perak, assumed 
duties, 7th October. A second Assistant Mycologist has been 
appointed and is expected early in 1911. The only officers who were 
attached for the whole year were Mr. L. C. Brown, Inspector, of 
Coconut Plantations, Mr. H. C. Pratt, Government Entomologist, 
and Mr. T. C. Nock, Assistant Inspector of Coconut Plantations, 
Selangor and Negri Sembilan. 
. With so many new officers, most of whom did not join, the 
Department until nearly the end of the year, it has been impossible 
to originate much new work and they have been chiefly occupied in 
gathering the threads of their predecessors’ work and endeavouring 
to discover a starting point for new work and new experiments. I 
have had but little opportunity of visiting plantations during my 
six weeks in the States. The,re was a considerable accumulation of 
office and experimental work that demanded immediate attention 
and this has occupied the greater part of my time. 
RUBBER. 
The year 1910 has been a remarkable one in the history of the 
rubber industry. The high price of rubber during the early part of 
the year and the realisation by the European investors of the value 
of rubber shares brought about the so-called “ rubber boom ’ and the 
price of shares reached very high figures. That the industry came 
through this period with so few failures is one of the strongest proofs 
that could be offered of its inherent soundness. 
The price of rubber fluctuated considerably during the year. 
Starting at 7s. per lb. in January (sheet and biscuit), it rose to 8 s. 2d. 
in February, to gs. 7d. in March, and finally reached 1 15. iO^d. in 
April-May, after this there was a fairly steady decline to 8<r. 5 d. per 
lb. in July and to 55. id. in December. The lowest figure was 4 s. 9d. 
in October. The cost of production has probably increased aboye 
