ideal conditions for the propagation and distribution of all kinds of 
disease through the milk sold. 
It is unreasonable to expect that the native cow keeper will ever 
improve his methods unless force is brought to bear on him by the 
authorities and a properly organized scheme is introduced for their 
management, under strict Government supervision) and the scientific 
improvement of the present breed of Dairy cattle. 
T. W. Main. 
SOME DISEASES OF RUBBER PLANTS. 
In the Bulletin du Department de' Y Agriculture des Indes Neer- 
landaises, No. 12. Ill, Dr. Bernard gives an interesting article on 
diseases of rubber plants under the title of Sur quelgues Maladies ^ des 
Plantes a caoutchouc.” Under a chapter considerations generales he 
points out that plant pathology is an art still in its infancy and shows 
how much more difficult a study it is than animal pathology, as a sick 
animal shows signs of its ailment externally, while a plant may be 
seriously ill and show very few signs of it, and again while it is easy to 
administer medicines internally to animals we can only make use of 
surgical operations and hygiene to plants, at present. Plants under 
cultivation are necessarily put under abnormal conditions. They are 
usually cultivated in a country remote from their original home and 
under a different climate. Wild plants grow separately, not crowded 
together as in cultivation but isolated through the forests which 
prevents the spread of any ailment by which they are attacked. 
He dilates on some of the important points in cultivation which 
have for their object the hygiene of the plant, such as attending 
to the straightening of the tap-root when planting out, the eradication 
of lalang and its replacement by beneficial herbaceous plants, and the 
thorough digging over of the ground, and strongly condemns the plant- 
ing of Hevea in old coffee ground, where he says a disease may spread 
from the old worn out coffee-bushes to the young Heveas, and as strongly 
urges the breaking up of the estate by barriers of other plants to 
prevent the spreading of disease; Hevea plantations being broken up 
into lots w T ith Ficus clastica barriers. 
Further experimental research with a view of obtaining more 
vigorous and disease resisting strains, and varieties giving an increased 
and superior product are required : such studies as have been made in 
tobacco and sugar cultivation with such remarkable results. There 
have been as yet few of these investigations made on the Para rubber, 
for in the first place the experiments which can readfiy be made on an 
annual plant such as tobacco, must take a far longer period in a tree 
such as Hevea, and secondly because in Java there are too few trees 
old enough to be utilised for such experiments and thirdly because the 
demand for plants has been so much greater than the supply that all 
the plantlets have been required for cultivation rather than for experi- 
ment. When however the boom of late years has passed and the 
cultivation has settled down into a steady course opportunities for such 
research and investigation will be found and used. 
