10 
tion was paid to this industry. Planters who had practically abandoned their plantations for 
the last 2 years resumed tapping when it was shown that with the present price (1/6 to 3/-), 
there was no industry in the Colony more profitable than rubber planting. The cost of pro¬ 
duction on a 10 acres plantation 8 to 9 years old was carefully worked out and the following 
results were published for general information — 
Cost of cultivation per lb 
Cost of tapping and curing 
Cost of depreciation, interest, &c 
Cost of packing and shipping, &c 
Cost of freight, commission, extra war charges, &c.... 
E 0.00 
0.45 
0.02 
0.02 
0.19 
Total 0.68 
The yield was found to be 2^ lb, per tree and the sale price in London amounted to 
Es 1.69 (2/3), leaving a nett profit of El per lb, or Es 2.60 per tree. Counting 150 trees to 
the acre this plantation produced Es 375 an acre. Even if the price is reduced to 1/6 and the 
yield brought down to 2 lbs the nett profit would amount to Es 225 an acre. A good coeoaut 
jfiantation yields hardly more than Es 80 an acre and, on an average, the yield is less than 
Es 40. When a comparison is made between these two cultivated plants one is inclined to 
make sweeping statements and to say that coconut is more paying, because it is so in other 
Colonies. Each country has to be examined on its own merits. The worn out coconut plan¬ 
tations of Seychelles produce on an average only 1020 nuts per acre, they being handicapped 
hy bad cultural methods, by little or no manuring and by a host ot insect and fungus pests. 
I heard this year a visitor of note stating that this Colony was not a rubber country, because 
he had seen a few plantations which were not doing well, and that while there were splendid 
trees in a given plantation, others growing side by side were not bigger than a walking stick. 
In the Malay States the walking sticks are veiy conspicuous (vide photos in Wright’s book on 
rubber). The same authority however admitted publicly in a lecture, after he was taken over 
a good plantation near Victoria, that it was possible to make rubber pay well in the Colony 
when grown under certain conditions. If rubber can pay well as it does when, as on the 
estate in question it is carefully planted on a well selected piece of ground, one can deduce 
that the same method of procedure can be adopted all over the Colony. With 5 to 10 acres 
of rubber, a small factory can be worked because no expensive machinery is required to pro¬ 
duce a good article. Labour is cheap and plentiful in the ColoUy and, in Mahe alone, there 
are, to my knowledge, over 4 to 5000 acres of waste land where rubber can he grown as well, 
as on the estate under consideration, if not better. Eubber planting is perhaps the only 
industry which can be worked economically on a small scale, and which is not exposed to 
marauders, and for these reasons, it is well adapted to the agricultural conditions prevailing 
in Seychelles at present. Furthermore the labour and sanitary conditions of tlie Colony 
permit of a greater reduction in the cost of production than in the East. Eubber in Sey¬ 
chelles is free from diseases, it grows well when planted in the proper soil and when it is 
well looked after. I am afraid that if it is said, in spite of the results already obtained, that 
Seychelles is not a rubber country, than neither is it a coconut or vanilla country because uot 
only are these two latter plants handicapped by all sorts of diseases but they also yield, when 
compared with the crops obtained in the Far East, a more reduced crop. The composition of 
the soil both mechanically and chemically and the weather conditions are exactly the same in 
the Straits, Malay States, Ceylon &c, as in Seychelles. The only difference lies in the size of 
these various colonies, although there are many islands in the Malay Peninsula not much 
larger than Seychelles where rubber is grown advantageously. The famous damp alluvial 
flats where rubber is so productive, only exist along the coast of these countries. Laterite 
soils of the same composition are quite as abundant there as in Seychelles. 
In the lecture already referred to, I pointed out that there is a tendency to overtap trees 
in Seychelles, by using the half spiral system but it should be remembered that the trees are 
young and that it is not easy to tap them on the one quarter system by which two channels 
instead of one are made down the stem. This system will he adopted when the trees are older 
and big enough to make room for the channels in question. Much stress was also laid in the 
deep incisions which are too often made on young trees hut this can hardly he avoided on new 
estates until the tappers are trained. 
On a few estates it has been decided to thin out young rubber too closely planted but in 
the majority of cases this system seems to he too leniently adopted and too much delayed. I 
noticed that on a few estates, on which coconut and rubber were interplanted, that rubber was 
mercilessly cut down. This procedure should he adopted with care as in many cases the coco¬ 
nut palms are dying from diseases. It is often a question as to which of the two trees should 
go to the wall. In many cases the coconut trees are so badly attacked by the mehtomma 
beetle that, unless the pest is eradicated, the palms will not reach 20 year’s. If they are to 
remain without treatment it is unsound to cut down rubber trees growing in the same grove ; 
as a long unproductive period will result if one tree is cut down and the other is doomed to 
die. The planter in this case may be pulling out the wrong tooth from his mouth, if this 
phrase is applicable. 
