469 
surface wood decays and forms at last a 'brown powdery 
soil, mixed with fragments of sticks etc. and reminding one 
of the surface of an old tan yard. The water which fills the 
drains and Streams from this formation is dark brown, re- 
sembling the brown peaty water of a Scotch moor, but is by 
no means safe to drink though it has only a slight peaty 
flavour as it is apt to produce a violent diarrhoea and has 
been known to cause much sickness of this nature among the 
coolies working in such land. 
We have not seen any analysis of either water or soil 
from such ground but it is probable that it contains an ex- 
cess of humic acid and also of salts of* magnesia, sodium 
and potash. 
Not long ago I visited the fibre plantations of the 
Peneiro estate in Southern Johore, recently floated as a 
Company. Here Sanseviera, Agave sisal ana and Four- 
croya gigantea were being cultivated on a large scale for 
fibre making. I was much struck with the appearance of 
the sisal hemp, Agave sisalana. This plant long in cultiv- 
ation in the Botanic Gardens in Singapore has never really 
made good growth, though being a desert plant, such as is 
scientifically called a xerophyte, it had been planted in the 
driest comers of the Gardens. 
In this damp mass of decaying logs and branches, it 
was growing luxuriantly. The plants were strong and 
healthy, in fact quite handsome and throwing up suckers 
in every direction. The suckers growing wherever they 
happened to be thrown. Fourcroya and Sanseviera , which 
however are much easier plants to grow here were also 
doing well. One would not indeed have been prepared to 
find a xerophytic plant cultivated successfully in dry sandy 
places in the* West Indian Islands thriving in a strongly 
peaty damp locality. On exactly similar ground I have 
seen Para rubber planted on a large scale. Now Para 
rubber is a typical hygrophyte, that is to say, a plant 
adapted for growth in the wettest regions of the tropics, 
the region known as the “ Tropical Rain-forest Region.” 
For a short time the little rubber plants looked all 
right, but only for a very short time. The mortality was 
frightful. The dead ones were replaced in vain. The 
plants all looked sickly and died, some from attacks of 
Fomes, others perhaps from termites, some from unknown 
fungi. The dead plants were pulled up were remarkable 
for their long tap root and for the fact that all the roots 
descended vertically parallel to the tap root. As every 
planter knows the Para rubber is a high rooter throwing 
