44 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[November i, 1910. 



JOHN HINCHLEY HART. 



ADVANCE OF THE MOTOR TRUCK. 



John Himhi.ey Hart, f.l.s. 



TTHE portrait on this page is that of the well-known head of 

 the Trinidad botanical garden for so many years, who, 

 though having retired from that position, continues active pri- 

 vate work in the field to which he has devoted his life. Born 

 on a farm in East .\nglia, the subject of this notice was sent for 

 his early training to a grammar school establislied by Lord 

 Keeper Bacon, in the town of Botesdale, Suffolkshire, England. 

 .\ few years later he was making his way in London horticul- 

 tural establishments, 

 notably those of Lee 

 & Veitch. He was 

 next to be found in 

 Xova Scotia, en- 

 gaged in landscape 

 a n (1 horticultural 

 work, being one of 

 the first to export 

 Canadian apples to 

 England. Returning 

 to the old country in 

 1875, he was sent out 

 in that year to join 

 the staff of the gov- 

 ernment agricultur- 

 al-horticultural de- 

 partment of the is- 

 land of Jamaica. 

 Here his landscape 

 practice proved use- 

 ful, and the newly 

 acquired lands ad- 

 joining the resi- 

 dence of the Gov- 

 ernor of that colony were placed in his charge. 



Next he assumed charge of the government Cinchona planta- 

 tion, which at that date was sending into the markets rll 

 species from the delicate C. calisaya to the hardy C. officinalis of 

 the pharmacies. His spare time was devoted to the botanical 

 exploration of the colony, and the pages of Urban's West Indian 

 compilations show the extent of the work he carried out, and 

 the number of new species he added to the flora. 



In 1887 Mr. Hart was sent to Trinidad as superintendent of 

 the Royal Botanic Garden of that island, with instructions to 

 push the new agriculture to its limit. After twenty years' work 

 the establishment had increased to nearly three times its original 

 size, and its reputation had become firmly fixed as among the 

 first of its class in the world. Mr. Hart retired on the maximum 

 pension in igo8, after which he purchased a house within sight 

 of the botanical garden and opened an office as an expert ad- 

 viser in tropical agriculture. Here the editor of The India Rub- 

 ber World met him on returning from the Amazon. 



Mr. Hart maintained and edited the Bulletin of the Trinidad 

 botanical department, which dealt with general botanical matters, 

 for more than twenty years, in a manner which secured for him 

 the best exchanges of the day. In addition, he has written a 

 standard work on cacao, which he has taken up as a specialty, 

 besides editing a volume on the "Ferns of the West Indies" of 

 some 420 pages. He is a prolific writer on current topics in 

 tropical agriculture, especially those connected with fungus dis- 

 eases, so destructive to tropical vegetation, and has taken a high 

 place among students of this class of plants. 



As a general all around man, it was hard to find his equal, 

 while in special studies, on account of his mastery of his subjects, 

 he has been placed, by some of the best authorities, on classical 

 record. For many years he was associated with the Hon. Sir 

 Daniel Morris, k. c. m. c, d. sc, etc., while the latter was Im- 

 perial commissioner of agriculture for the West Indies. 



T' 



IIK commercial motor vehicle is rapidly coming into its own. 

 .^s mentioned already in The India Rubber World, the 

 atmual automobile show at Madison Square Garden next Jan- 

 uary will exclude commercial vehicles, but the Garden will be 

 filled during the following week with a show under the same 

 management devoted to motor trucks alone. Could there be 

 better evidence of the growth in importance of the commercial 

 motor car trade? 



The progress in this new field is of importance both to the 

 rubber tire manufacturer and the producer of rubber, whether 

 in forest or on plantations. Business men have been studying 

 the cost of motor vehicle service as compared with horse-drawn 

 vehicles— and the days of horses in city street traffic are num- 

 bered. Using horses to haul freight through the streets will 

 soon be regarded as uneconomical as walking up twenty flights 

 of stairs to one's office instead of taking an elevator. With the 

 horses out of the w-ay, in New York, for example, every com- 

 mercial vehicle on the streets will be equipped with the product 

 of some rubber factory. 



It is not alone the economy of the automobile truck over the 

 horse-drawn vehicle that is to be considered. Wholesale truck- 

 ing is in sight. Half the drays one sees in the street are empty. 

 The vehicle goes out from its starting point with a load and 

 returns empty; or it starts empty and returns with a load. In 

 any event, half the energ>', half the time, and half the cost is 

 consumed without any load being carried. Under a wholesale 

 trucking system, with established stations, it would be possible 

 after a while to so arrange trips on schedule time, on which 

 every vehicle, practically speaking, would carry loads going and 

 coming. 



Before the first Cornelius Vanderbilt started rowing a boat 

 between Staten Island and New York there had never been any 

 system in transferring passengers across the bay. Whoever 

 wanted to go over had to arrange for a boat by chance, and the 

 man at the oars might not have a passenger on the return trip. 

 But Vanderbilt appointed hours for going and coming, so that 

 intending passengers need have no worry about hiring boats. 

 The same systematic Vanderbilt expanded his business of carry- 

 ing passengers on water until he owned the finest steamships on 

 the Atlantic. Later he turned his attention to transportation on 

 land, and showed the world how to organize railway systems. 

 To-day the Vanderbilt lines, and all other railway lines as well, 

 carry loads of freight on all their trains, whether going out or 

 coming in. The local freighting companies in large cities in 

 future will do the same thing. 



The Bush Terminal Company, great handliers of freight, with 

 wharves in South Brooklyn, from and to which is an immense 

 trucking business, are constructing in Manhattan borough, New 

 York, at a cost of $250,000, a central trucking station, to be 

 connected with their wharves by a line of motor trucks, to be 

 run on schedule time over definite routes. It is planned in time 

 to have other central stations and branch lines of lighter vehicles, 

 with the end ultimately of being able to serve promptly any part 

 of the great commercial section of lower New York. There can 

 be no doubt that the plan is practical; if it works at all, the cost 

 of conveying freight over New York streets will be remarkably 

 lessened, and the congestion of the streets be remedied to a very 

 great extent. 



Whatever may be the success of the particular company named 

 here, they certainly are on the right road — and one that will 

 require a yearly increasing amount of rubber for commercial 

 vehicles. * * * 



Ati American correspondent of London Commercial Motor 

 writes that the suggestion is made in the United States to apply 

 the expression "freight automobiles" to all forms of motor cars 

 not devoted primarily to passenger traffic. 



