125 



the surface roots is no handicap whatever. On the contrary, in 

 times of drought, the deep-lying roots feed and drink at their 

 leisure, far from the hot sun or withering winds, and the plants 

 survive and arrive at rich maturial, while the plants with shallow 

 roots wither and die, or are so seriously injured as to produce an 

 inferior crop * * ^-^ (for reasons stated) ; an excess of mois- 

 ture in the upper soil when the young plants are rooting is really 

 an injury to them." There are those who claim that no one can 

 plow between cacao and rubber trees, but we know that they can 

 and do cultivate if they are wise, and as a proof that what we say 

 is correct, at any rate as regards rubber estates, we have borrowed 

 a photograph from Messrs. Marshall, Sons & Co., Ltd., of Gains- 

 borough (Eng), showing their oil tractor at work between the 

 young trees on an Eastern rubber estate. The block included here 

 shows that the tractor and cultivator can easily pass up and down 

 between the trees, and by doing so the fertility and yielding-power 

 of the soil is greatly increased. 



Those who have stood in cacao and other estates in the full 

 tropics, where damp and heat are rampant, if they are not preju- 

 diced against inter-crop cultivation, must realize as they notice 

 the damp, dark, often sourish soil, the moss growing over it and 

 up the trunks, lichens and epiphytes also, what an advantage it 

 would be to break up this top spit and let out, in this case, excess 

 moisture, and allow air to get down below. This is in the wet or 

 damper seasons. In the dry seasons, and those of prolonged 

 drought, as Trinidad and the West Indies have been suffering 

 from, this broken surface would turn into a dust mulch, and the 

 roots driven downwards in consequence of your having persist- 

 ently ruptured the surface weeders, would surely, as Dr. Widtsoe 

 says in speaking of arid lands, find that coolness, air and moisture 

 below that they cannot obtain nearer the surface, and which, on 

 uncultivated areas, they would never have access to. 



THE INTERNATIONAL RUBBER EXHIBITION, 

 LONDON, 19 1 4. 



(From The Rubber World Supplement, March 27, 1913.) 



Tlxe matter we print this week relative to the fourth Interna- 

 tional Rubber Exhibition, to be held in London next year, may 

 well make some people rub their eyes in astonishment. Another 

 exhibition in active preparation ! Fifteen months seems a long 

 time to look ahead ; yet when the interests affected are world-wide 

 fifteen months disappear almost in a flash, and the next great 

 International Rubber Show to be held in London combined with 

 the first Cotton, Fibres, and Tropical Products Exhibition, already 

 to a very large extent shapes itself in the brain of the organizer. 

 Successful exhibitions are the result of long-continued and wholly 

 strenuous preparation. There are big things to be compassed. 



