Q\ 
3 
There has been some increase of the Red Palm-Weevil in Malacca due to the 
cutting out of coconuts from among rubber and neglect to remove the trunks. The 
same kind of cutting out is proceeding in the Province W ellesley ; but an increase of 
the Red Palm-Weevil has not been noticed there. 
Fundus-Pests, except Fomes semitostus , have done little damage within the 
Gardens. Uredo Dioscoreae was rather abundant on some experimental yams, but 
does not cause death. The former took toll in a number of rubber trees from blocks 
i, 4 and 5 of the Economic Garden, and appeared newly in block 2, which was 
thought free, until a tree, falling, revealed among its roots part of an old log which had 
served as a nidus for the fungus. 
The “ Gardens’ Bulletin” was published twice. The first of the two numbers 
1 contained an account of tapping in the Economic Garden from its commencement to 
March 14th, 1914, when the old system of grouping of trees was superseded by the 
division into blocks. The second contained various reports, e. g., on yams, on the 
seeds of Canariurn rufuvi , on the rainfall of 19141 and an enumeration of plants 
collected in Pahang by the late Mr. A. M. BURN-MURDOCH. The Bulletin brings in 
43 exchanges. 
For the Gardens' Library two new pigeon-hole almyrahs have been made to hold 
unbound serials. Pamphlets to the number of more than 1,300 have been bound into 
1 17 volumes by subjects. Of otht-r volumes 129 have been bound in the jail and 7 
outside. The measures taken to guard the books against rats have been successful. 
From the HERBARIUM the following specimens were sent out: — 
60 species to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 
146 species to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Calcutta. 
57 species to the University of Cambridge. & 
226 species to the Bureau of Science, Manila. 
' ^ 48 species to the Botanic Gardens, Buitenzorg. 
> The department has botanized in the following places: — Pulau linggi and Pulau 
Tiuman, the Settlements and in the Negri Sembilan on the Malacca border (the 
Director), about Kedah Peak and in the hills north of Alor Star (the Overseer of the 
Waterfall Gardens), interior of Sarawak (a collector put under the supervision of Mr. 
J. C. Moulton). To Mr. H. C. Robinson, Director of Museums, Federated Malay 
States, the department was indebted for the chance of collecting on the two islands 
first named. 
The bringing of the Singapore and former Penang herbaria into one series has 
been continued. The whole of the collections have been re-poisoned. 
A special investigation has been undertaken in cofij unction with Mr, 
G. E. S. Cubitt, Conservator of Forests, on the Dipterocarps. 
• Botanic Gardens, Singapore. 
There were no band-nights at full-moon during the year ; but the officers of a 
French warship, of a Japanese warship, and of the regiment stationed in Singapore, 
were so good as to send their bands on different occasions to play in the Gardens at 
sundown. 
There were no labour troubles during the year; and to the credit of the subordi- 
nate staff it is to be said that there was but a single day's interruption of work when 
in the latter part of February the European supervision was called away. 
More thefts than usual occurred ; three thieves caught on different occasions were 
convicted in court and sentenced. The worst thieves escaped. The thieving was 
chiefly from the Economic Garden : but the most annoying theft of all was from the 
Botanic Gardens, being of an orchid newly labelled. It had been intended to label the 
orchids set out all over the Gardens on trees, as they flower and are determined : but 
9 as the first labelled was stolen within two days of the labelling, the Public cannot have 
this intended advantage: instead, a list will be kept in the Gardens' office in the 
following form “ Dendrobium superbum on tree J 706.” 
The monkeys in the Gardens proved very troublesome : they visit the plant-houses 
for tender shoots : they have destroyed sugar-cane and pine-apples in the Economic 
Garden, tearing out the young leaves of the latter as well as biting the fruit : and 
they have repeatedly broken down and bitten back the shoots of the experimental 
yams. With the clearing of the land round the Gardens these animals have come to 
depend for their food less and less on wild sources and more and more on what is 
cultivated. 
*> 
| 
