110 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[January i, 1904. 



to ascertain the exact cause for this dropping of the leaves. I 

 have not found that any typically diseased trees had dropped 

 their leaves nor had they dead branches. So we may take it that 

 there is no connection between nectria in rubber and any ab- 

 normal dropping of leaves, or dying back of branches, which 

 are probably due to an abnormal season or to a tree being in 

 an unsuitable place, or, through some accidental reason, not 

 being able to do so well as its neighbors." 



(n answer to questions by members Mr. Carruthers said : 

 " Unfortunately there is a deepseated belief that, if there be 

 any disease on a tree, the plants produced from such tree are 

 liable to have the disease. I can assure you that this is not 

 so. If you had a cankered tree on which a branch or branches 

 were dead, the fruit produced on the living portions of the 

 tree would be absolutely good for planting purposes — as good 

 as fruit from any other tree. 



" If there is nectria on the bark, it will not affect the root of 

 the tree. I experimented and tried to get the canker to grow 

 on the root, but it was of no use. Nectria canker affects the 

 tissue in the bark of the tree or branch, but not the root tissue_ 

 The same applies in the case of seed. There is absolutely no 

 fungus in seed, and plants produced from seed off diseased trees 

 will not inherit that disease." 



By Mr. Dove : Do you consider there is anything very serious In this 

 rubber disease ? 



Mr. Carruthers : Not at all. 



By Mr. GolLdge: Do you think the tendency of the disease to make 

 itself apparent will be greater in low lying land ? 



Mr. Carruthers : Rather more in damp places than on ridges and 

 well drained places. 



By Mr. Golled^e : Swampy land will tend greatly to encourage the 

 disease ? 



Mr. Carruthers : Yes, when once the disease has got hold of the 

 tree. 



By Mr. Tisdall : The disease can be eradicated ? 



Mr, Carruthers : Yes. 



By Mr. Farquhoison : A certain margin should be cut round the dis- 

 eased portion ? 



Mr. Carruthers : I think two inches would be on the safe side. 



A motion was adopted unanimously by those present: 



That this meeting is gratified to hear that the number of rubber trees 

 in this district affected by the canker is so extremely small, but, recog- 

 nizing that this and other evils may by neglect assume serious propor- 

 tions, resolves to undertake on all estates in the district the regular in- 

 spection of their trees with a view to prevention of diseases, and to treat 

 the trees in the way recommended by the government mycologist — i. e., 

 the excision of all cankered bark and the burning of all dead and dying 

 branches. 



It is understood that the details of the nature and effect of 

 the rubber canker will form an early issue of the " Circular " 

 published from the royal botanic garden of Ceylon. 



A RUBBER COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE. 



AN interesting study of a region important for its product 

 tion of India-rubber, but little known to the outside 

 world, appears in a "Narrative of a Visit to Indian 

 Tribes of the Puifis River, Brazil," by Joseph Beal 

 Steere, and published in the latest Report of the United States 

 National Museum (Washington). The author was commis- 

 sioned by the Museum to make some studies with a view to 

 completing a series of exhibits for the Pan American Exposi- 

 tion at Buffalo, in 1901. He planned to visit certain Indian 

 tribes on the lower Amazon, but at Para he was told that these 

 Indians were spoiled, for ethnological study, by contact with 

 missionaries and civilization, and hence he proceded further. 



It seems that no wild tribe now lives on the lower Amazon or 

 its navigable branches. The ancient inhabitants have in most 

 cases entirely disappeared, many tribes without doubt becom- 

 ing extinct, though a few individuals may have merged with 

 the hardier Tapuios (Tupuyan family), the civilized and Chris- 

 tian Indians of the Amazon. Great tracts of the country are 

 entirely without human inhabitants, as the latter generally live 

 in small villages and scattered cabins along the navigable 

 streams only. Wild tribes still exist on the headwaters of the 

 rivers, where impassable forests and dangerous rapids separate 

 them from the traders and rubber gatherers below. There are 

 supposed to be some wild Indians on the river Guamd, within 

 150 miles of Pata, but a visit to them would require a strong 

 party and several weeks' time in ascending rapids in canoes. 

 Mr. Steere chose to ascend the Puriis. the mouth of which 

 he reached by two days' steaming up the Amazon from Manaos. 

 For several hundred miles of the Puriis's lower course the for- 

 ests produce but little rubber and nuts, the staples of northern 

 Brazil, and settlements are seen only at long intervals. The 

 people seen along the stream live by chopping wood for the 

 steamers and catching fish and turtles which are sold to the 

 steamboat people for food. Some references to the upper 

 Puriis follow : 



As we approached the mouth of the Tapaua, though to the unprac- 

 ticed eye there was no change in the character of the never ending for- 

 est, the settlements of the rubber gatherers became frequent. The rub- 

 ber station usually consists of a large building (the barracdn), generally 

 built of wood or mud and roofed with tile. The lower story serves for 

 a salesroom and for storage, and the upper story for a home for the pro- 

 prietor [fatrdn) and his family. Around the station are scattered palm 

 thatched cabins, the homes of the rubber gatherers. Though most of 

 the settlements are of this kind, at Canutama and Libria [Labrea] towns 

 of several hundred inhabitants have sprung up. 



The rubber gatherers are a mixed population, chiefly Tupuio, gather- 

 ed from all of the older settlements of the Amazon and led here by the 

 hope of making money easily and quickly in the rubber business. Of 

 late years large numbers of people [Cearenses] have come up the river 

 from the state of Ceara on the seacoast, from which they were driven by 

 famine caused by excessive drought. 



Near the mouth of the Ituchy* the steamer stopped at the little sta- 

 tion of San Luis de Cassyana, the property of Coronel [Colonel] Gomez, 

 who has made his fortune in rubber and is called the king of the Ituchy. 

 Two steam launches for navigating the Ituchy and numbers of smaller 

 craft anchored in front of his barracdn, with $10,000 or$!5,ooo worth of 

 rubber lying on the bank ready for shipment, were marks of his enter- 

 prise and prosperity. Several of the dugout canoes of the Paumari In- 

 dians (Aranau family) were drawn up on the bank, the first signs of 

 aborigines we had seen, and as our freight was carried on shore a half 

 dozen Paumari women came down and helped carry it to the storehouse. 

 - - - The only man among them, after carrying a few loads up the slip- 

 pery bank through the mud and rain, with the promise of a drink of rum 

 as pay, gave it up in disgust. 



Anciently these Indians were much more numerous and are 

 said to have occupied the Puriis down to near its mouth. They 

 are now reduced to a few hundred, expert swimmers and boat- 

 men, and living almost entirely upon fish and turtles. During 



* Also Ituxy ; 692 miles from the Amazon. At the junction of the rivers is rhe town 

 of Labrea. mentioned above, where an electric lighting plant was erected in 1902 

 and waterworks were being planned. [See The India Ruijuer World, June 1, 

 1902— page 282.] 



