Batata and the Batata Industry. 
By G. S. Jenman, Government Botanist. 
S5 
AVING paid some attention since I have been in 
the colony to the native rubber and gutta trees 
of Guiana,* I long desired an opportunity to 
visit the County of Berbice with the object of gaining, by 
personal investigation, an idea of the extent and state of 
the balata forests there, — that region being their head 
quarters in the colony, — and of the methods pursued in 
collecting balata. Recently, with the permission of His 
Excellency the Governor, I had the gratification to ac- 
complish this desire ; and the following pages contain 
the information that I gathered (with my previous expe- 
rience in the colony) during a fortnight's travelling on the 
Canje River and its Creeks, on the banks of which, since 
i860, the industry of balata collecting has grown up, 
been systemised, and carried on, of late years especially, 
as a considerable trade. 
The Canje f River has its rise in the great savannah 
region stretching between the upper part of the Berbice 
and middle of the Corentyn Rivers. This savannah from 
the banks of the Corentyn, which has no important 
arteries into it, is drained principally by the Canje. 
After clearing the savannah, the river flows for about a 
hundred miles through a low alluvial forest region, dis- 
charging at length just within the estuary of the Berbice 
River. In this forest region grow plentifully the trees 
with which this report has to deal. Though one of the 
* Vide "Timehri" vol. 1 and 2. 
f Pronounced Kannye. 
U 
