PARA-RUBBER CULTIVATION 397 



scientific interest in the subject. Before doing so, a short 

 account of the history of rubber cultivation may not be out 

 of place. 



Historical 



Although the modern industry of rubber-planting may be 

 considered to date back only some ten or eleven years, yet to 

 trace this new cultivation from its inception we must revert 

 to the year 1876. The seeds destined to become the source of 

 most of the Para-rubber trees now growing in the East were 

 in that year collected in Brazil, brought to England, and sown 

 at Kew. The young plants raised from these seeds were 

 transhipped to Ceylon. This introduction of Hevea brasiliensis 

 to the eastern tropics was due chiefly to the energy and fore- 

 sight of two men, both happily with us at the present day, 

 Sir Joseph Hooker, then Director of Kew, and Mr. Wickham, 

 at that time engaged in planting pursuits in tropical South 

 America. Drawings of the foliage and fruit of the tree made 

 by Wickham were seen by Hooker, and the latter did not rest 

 until he had persuaded the India Office to grant Wickham 

 a commission for the collection and conveyance of the seed to 

 England. How this was successfully accomplished has recently 

 been retold by Mr. Wickham himself. 1 The story forms the 

 romance of tropical agriculture. Owing to the short vitality 

 possessed by this oily seed, 2 no time had to be lost in convey- 

 ing the quantity collected across the ocean. Some seventy 

 thousand seeds reached Kew Gardens, and from them quickly 

 sprang a goodly array of seedlings. Ceylon was chosen for 

 their reception, and two thousand young plants reached this 

 favoured isle in 1876. They were mainly planted in a special 

 plot of ground at Henaratgoda in the low country. Soon a 

 small forest of young Heveas grew up. This grove is now 

 historic, for from it the first planters to take up rubber culti- 

 vation obtained their seed ; in addition these trees afforded 

 the means for carrying out the early work in tapping and the 

 preparation of rubber, upon the results of which the estates 

 have largely based the methods now in use. The total cost of 

 the introduction of the Para-rubber tree to the East amounted 



1 H. A. Wickham, Para Indian Rubber (1908). London, 1908, pp. 45-59. (See 

 review in Science Progress, 1909, 3, 705-6.) 



J By careful packing in powdered charcoal the vitality of the seed can be 

 somewhat prolonged. 



