92 



ant — duck-ant or termite, is also primarily due to the attack of micro- 

 scopic fungi which reduce the wood first of all to a condition which 

 lenders it suitable for the ant communities. It is time, therefore, that 

 such teaching should have the special attention of Horticulturists and 

 Agriculturists, as it has of late years been shown, that the most deadly 

 enemies to oiir major products are to be found in the ranks of the 

 forms of vegetation known under the general name of microscopic or 

 Parasitic fungi. 



627.-THE BASIS OF HOPE IN RUBBER PLANTING. 



A question asked by many persons, when the subject of rubber 

 planting is first brought to their attention, is whether any rubber 

 plantations have yet been developed profitably. If told that no large 

 rubber plantations on a commercial basis have yet been in existence 

 long enough for the trees to have become mature, this statement seems 

 to afford to some minds an ample excuse for distrust of the whole 

 business. If no large plantation of rubber is yet old enough to yield 

 liberally, how does anyone know that rubber can be produced under 

 cultivation ? The question deserves consideration, and it may be worth 

 while to point out some of the reasons which have encouraged the 

 investment of a large amount of capital in rubber planting. 



If an illustration from an outside field may be permitted, we may 

 mention that the offices of this Journal overlook the first of the great 

 suspension bridges erected over the East river, in New York city, long 

 known as the " Brooklyn Bridge." When this structure was first 

 planned, back in 1S67, no suspension bridge on such a stupendous 

 seale had ever been built. None had even been planned. It was a 

 great risk to put up in the air a span a third of a mile in length, 

 weighing of itself thousands of tons, and intended to support a vast 

 and incessant traffic Many people said it couldn't be done ; they kept 

 on saying it for sixteen years. 80 long as the bridge was building 

 people were writing to the newspapers that such a bridge was impos- 

 sible — because nothing of the kind had been done before. At last the 

 bridge was completed, and for twenty years it has been a constant 

 thoroughfare for more traffic than anybody ever dreamed would exi>t. 



But the bridge was no mere experiment. The engineers who 

 drew the plans and calculated the quantity of materials needed to give 

 certain results simply applied known and tested principles of construc- 

 tion : the new bridge was merely bigger than any that had been built 

 before. Now a second bridge, of still longer span, stretches over the 

 East river, and it causes no wonder. 



The application of this to the rubber planting proposition may 

 not be so remote as might at ti 1st seem. It has been abundantly 

 proved that a rubber tree seed planted carefully by hand will grow 

 into a tree not differing from the producl ^l' a seed dropped by nature 

 and finding a chance place to germinate. It has been proved that the 

 rubber product of such planted trees differs in noway from that of 

 a rubber tree in the forest. Small plantations of rubber, of various 

 species, in different countries, have produced rubber under conditions 

 which point to a lower cosl of production than in the richesl fores! 



