( 9 ) 
blanks in rather poorly stocked taban areas and has * 
seldom been done on plantation lines. The total 
area planted will amount to about 2,000 acres. 
In 1915, one company, affiliated with one of the 
cable companies, secured land in the Kuala Lipis 
district of Pahang and began a plantation of gutta 
percha. The plantation has an area of 6,000 acres, 
of which about 1,000 acres have been planted up. 
The work has proved to be unexpectedly expensive, 
largely because of the great difficulty experienced 
in getting a supply of seed for planting. The plants 
for plucking are being grown in bush form. 
The total area of planted gutta percha in the 
Malay Peninsula is probably not more than 3,000 
acres. 
It has not yet been demonstrated that gutta 
percha is a profitable plantation crop in the Malay 
Peninsula, although there is some prospect that it 
may become so. It would certainly be most unwise 
to embark on such planting now unless the planter 
were prepared to face very long delays and many 
failures. The greatest single difficulty at present is 
the lack of a sufficient supply of seed, and there 
is every prospect that this will continue to be a 
difficulty for a number of years to come. 
IV.— HARVESTING. 
1. The Original Method. 
The method originally used by the native was to 
fell the tree, lop off the branches, and collect the 
^utta by making a number of wide cuts through 
the bark at intervals of a foot or more. Some of 
the gutta was wasted, by falling on the ground ; some 
was collected from the cuts or from receptacles 
