414 
when it did not produce the results hoped for, deeming it 
a. failure. 
Another reason for some planters not finding the use 
of cover plants so perfect a substitute for weeding as they 
hoped was that the cover plant (very often crotalaria) was 
sown broadcast, and it has been found by experience over 
large areas that this method of planting cover plants is 
wasteful and very much less effective than sowing the seed 
by dibbling, planting in furrows, or similar methods. The 
loss may be due to the exposure of the germinating seed to 
the sun, or to its being washed along when the tender root- 
lets are beginning to form, or birds may eat the seed, but 
whatever is the cause it is always found that the proportion 
of seed producing plants is very small indeed. 
On the other hand, the planting in lines, the seed being 
slightly covered, results in 80-100 per cent, of the seed pro- 
ducing healthy plants. 
In planting cover plant on steep land it is imperative 
that the lines should follow the contour of the land when 
they are made to run up and down the hillside the seed will 
be washed down with the loosened earth. This results in 
the seeds being massed in one place, and the young plants 
growing closely together in clumps at the foot of the lines. 
The use of cover plants in place of clean weeding is 
now, after three years’ constant advocacy, very generally 
considered as an economical and practical practice, which 
1 have no doubt will greatly increase when the benefit to the 
rubber and the saving in expense have been proved on a 
large number of estates. 
The relative advantages of various plants as cover 
plants for rubber clearings is an important question to 
decide before proceeding to lay down fields with one or 
other. Leguminous plants possess the property of in- 
creasing the amount of available nitrogen in the soil by 
means of bacteria living in their roots which obtain nitrogen 
from the air, and in this respect should be preferred to 
other plants. 
The chief thing to consider in laying down a cover plant 
is rapidity and cheapness in thoroughly establishing if, and 
if a plant is found to quickly take possession of the soil and 
cover it to the exclusion of all others, the fact of its not 
being leguminous should not weigh against it. 
The ideal plant for the purpose of protecting rubber 
land and eliminating or reducing very considerably the 
weeding bill is a plant which grows not more than a foot to 
18 inches high, is permanent or persistent for three or four 
