338 
should be bright green, unbroken, and of good aroma, and these char- 
acters can only be obtained by collecting the leaves carefully and 
drying them fairly rapidly. 
It is stated that in Java and Ceylon the best qualities of coca 
leaves are dried quickly by means of a current of warm air produced 
by a fan. 
The price obtainable at the present time for coca leaves is fairly 
remunerative, because the trade, outside South America, is in a few 
hands and there is no over-production of the leaves. The total 
demand for coca leaves is however, small and there would be great 
risk of overstocking the market and so reducing prices if further ex- 
pensive planting is undertaken. In these circumstances if it is pro- 
posed to plant Enjtkroxylon Coca in the Federated Malay States the 
enterprise should be started on a small scale and afterwards extended, 
should circumstances point to the desirability of this being done. 
15th July, 1907. 
(Sgd.) Wyndham R. Dunstan. 
RUBBER IMPORTS INTO THE UNITED STATES 
IN 1907. 
Brazil supplied more than one-half of the manufactured India 
rubber imported and Mexico nearly four million dollars worth. African 
rubber comes mainly via. Europe although some Brazilian and East 
Indian is included in the 15 million dollars worth imported via Europe 
of the 154 million pounds produced in 1906, 77 millions or more than 
one-half were consumed in the United States. 31 millions in Great 
Britain and 20 millions in Germany. (J. J. Macfarlane in Foreign 
Trade of the United States for 1907.) 
FERTILIZING PLANTS. 
We have received a printed circular from Mr. Harrison of New 
South Wales ^entitled “Two great fertilizing plants for rubber and 
other estates.” The plants recommended by the correspondent are a 
species of Melilot, (no botanical name given) and Lespedeza striata. 
There are several species of Melt lot us known, natives of Europe where 
one of them, M. officinalis, probably the one referred to, is very exten- 
sively cultivated for fodder. Seeds of several species of Melilot, includ- 
ing this one, and Lespedeza striata have been often received at the 
Botanic Gardens in Singapore and tried as have most of the fodder 
plants of Europe, and with the same result, a dead failure. This is 
of course the result that one would expect. A plant accustomed to 
the temperate climate of England or Tasmania has no chance in the hot 
wet climate of the equator. The first heavy rainstorm or really hot 
day would finish it off quickly if it ever germinated at all. It is 
curious that people who would ridicule the idea of replacing turnips in 
the fields of Kent, by pineapples as a crop seem to think it quite reasona- 
ble that clovers and such plants from Kent should do well on the 
