Scientists and Philosophers 209 



nothing but the words. It was said that Mussolini had been 

 considerably influenced by studying Pareto. As I look back 

 on it, it may perhaps be concluded that this was not an 

 overwhelming recommendation for the book. I like to read 

 books concerning history, biography, travel, adventure, 

 detective stories, and shrewd observations concerning ani- 

 mals or plants. But philosophy is completely beyond my 

 ken; it not only bores me, it irritates me, and after a bout 

 of Pareto I become absolutely unfit for human companion- 

 ship. 



The men whom I have derived the deepest satisfaction 

 from meeting and thinking about have usually not been 

 thinkers in the strict sense of the word. Time and again I 

 have recalled the delight of meeting Wilham H. Ridley. 

 He was Director of the Botanic Garden at Singapore when 

 David Fairchild and Barbour Lathrop visited the Garden in 

 1897. He was still Director when I presented my letter of 

 introduction to him from Dr. George L. Goodale. It was 

 Ridley alone, among all the directors of the gardens in 

 British colonies throughout the tropical world, who began 

 to experiment with the rubber seedlings distributed by 

 Kew Gardens after the first batch of seed was bootlegged 

 out from Brazil. He studied the variation in quality of the 

 latex in the different trees and methods of tapping. Although 

 it was slow in coming and the British and Dutch planters of 

 the Malayan region took a lot of coaxing, when rubber 

 culture once took hold it went forward with a rush. About 

 the time Brazilian forest rubber reached $2.10 a pound, 

 plantation rubber began to appear on the market and in a 

 few years the Brazilian rubber town of Manaos was a de- 

 serted city. Probably not one person in a thousand has ever 



