5 
a pleasant drive for carriages. The proposed route starting from the Daivey Road 
entrance passes along the base of the central hill and joins the Cluny Road at the 
main entrance. The first part of the road has been cleared and levelled, the scrub 
between the boundary and the arboretum being felled, the ground levelled and turfed. 
It is hoped to complete the road this year, but the vote will not permit of its being 
laterited at present. A large number of useless, dead and dying trfees were cut down 
and removed, including two large Erythrinas which were killed by lightning. 
Para-rubber . — The demand for this plant shewed no signs of diminution, and 
the crop of seed supplied by the trees was larger than ever, no less than 157,652 
seeds and 4,930 plants being distributed. The larger amount of crop was due in part 
to the adoption of the plan of gathering the fruit by hand, without waiting for the seed 
to fall, so that a quantity which was formerly lost by falling upon the roads and into 
the streams was saved. It was found that the coolies soon ^learnt what fruits were 
ripe, and there were no losses from gathering immature fruit. The whole crop* 
amounted to 1 57,652 seeds and 4,930 plants. 
They were distributed as follows : — 
Singapore 
600 seeds 
and 30 plants 
Malacca 
75.951 
?) 
9 °° 
Selangor 
70,707 
800 „ 
Perak 
Johore 
7 . 2 7 1 
1,850 
n 
1.800 ,, 
Borneo 
Pahang 
G 3 73 
i, 4 °° 
• 
Seedling plants were less in demand, the planters preferring seed as easier to 
ship and cheaper; stumps however, i. e. t plants of one or two years’ old and ten or 
fifteen feet tall were much in request. Younger plants when planted out are found 
to be attacked by all manner of pests,. deer, mouse-deer, crickets, grasshoppers, wild 
pigs, snails and even crabs are reported as doing much damage by biting off the tops. 
Ramie. 
ft 
12. Comparatively little was done in Ramie this year, and the cultivation in the 
Peninsula is not increasing to any extent. Plants of various strains from China, Java, 
and Sumatra were presented to the Gardens by Mr. Rankine and Mr. BluntSCHLI, 
over six thousand plants and cuttings were distributed. 
. Sago. 
13. A large number of seeds and plants were sent to Saigon, where it is pro- 
posed to introduce the cultivation. 
Of other economic plants, Coca, Patchouli, Coffea stenophylla, Nutmegs, Gambler- 
seed. Pineapples, and fruit trees, were distributed. A large number of seeds of timber 
trees, Tembusu, Eugenia grandis, Pithecolobium bigeminum, Albizzia Moluccana, etc., 
were' supplied to the Forest Department, Selangor. 
14. Of economic plants new to the Gardens there were received from- Saigon, 
plants of Dichopsis Krantziana , an inferior Gutta percha from Cochin-China, WiP 
lughbeia edulis, one of the Getah grips from Assam, which produces an edible fruit 
and an inferior rubber, Urceola elastica, from Penang, one of the best local rubbers. 
Landolphia sp. from Trinidad, (sent from Kew). M ascarenhaisia elastica , a rubber 
plant from Madagascar sent from Berlin, Vanilla pompona (Mexico) and seeds of the 
Butternut Caryocar nuciferum from Kew; seeds of Psoralea corylifolia (a green 
soiling plant) and good strains of Castor-oil were sent from Calcutta. 
Gutta Percha. 
15. The diminishing supply of this product has caused some anxiety among the 
consumers, and the cultivation of the plant has been strongly urged by the Colonial 
Officer. 'Steps are now being taken to carry this out on as large a scale as possible,. 
It is now very difficult to procure seed owing to the destruction of all the larger wild 
trees by the gutta-col lectors, so that there are few trees of sufficient size to produce 
fruit left in accessible parts of the Peninsula, stumps and cuttings are however still 
procurable from the Peninsula and from Borneo. Mr. Dunlop procured a large 
number of cuttings of Dichopsis from Borneo which he brought to Singapore. These 
were dry looking sticks about 8 inches or a foot long of various thicknesses, some 
beino- half an fnch through, but most were smaller. They had been coated in 
black mud and packed in bundles in gunnies. These were planted in good soil in the 
Botanic Gardens, shaded and watered and a number produced ?hoots and roots, and 
