Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstrait121878roya).pdf/146

 NOTES ON GUTTA AND CAOUTCHOUC IN THE MALAY PENINSULA.

Having so recently as last December given the results of my investigations into the origin of Malay Guttas and Rubbers in a Report to the local Government, I may perhaps be accused of iteration in returning to the subject so soon; but as the matter is one of increasing importance, and as greater publicity will be ensured, and thereby discussion invited, through the pages of the Society's Journal, I have been induced to give the following resumé of what I have hitherto been able to learn about them.

First of all it is necessary to distinguish here between Gutta Fercha and Caoutchouc-producing orders.

The trees producing Gutta Percha are all members of the order Sapotaceæ, a family which includes many species useful to man, the best known in the Straits being perhaps the Chiko (Sapota Aeras.)

The Gutta-producing trees are confined to the genus Isonandra, which is limited to 6 species by the authors of the "Genera Plantarum." Isonandra-Gutta is the oldest known species and yields what is known in commerce as Gutta Percha in local parlance Gutta Taban.

This tree is occasionally met with in Singapore and in Johor in the Pulai bills. and I have met with it in Perak on Gunong Mera, Gunong Sayong, Gunong Panjang, Gunong Bubo, Gunong Hijan and Bujang Malacca, where large trees of 80 to 120 feet are met with, but owing to the reckless way in which the Gotta is collected, it is fast disappearing, and every succeeding year the collectors are obliged to go further from their kampongs in search of it.

The mode of collecting the milk is as follows. A tree not less than 3 feet in circumference at three feet from the ground is selected, the larger the tree the greater the quantity of Gutta obtainable, it is then cut down at 5 or 6 feet from the ground, and as soon as it is felled the top is taken off where the principal stem is about 3 or 4 inches in diameter; this the natives say causes the trunk to yield a larger quantity of milk; it is then ringed at intervals of 5 to 15 inches with golo's, and the milk collected in co-