DEBT OF AGRICULTURE TO AMERICA COOK 501 



that it would be less susceptible to cold than the Castilla tree, but 

 such are the facts. Though the seedlings of the Hevea tree often 

 require shade and wind protection, the range of possible cultivation 

 is much wider than has been supposed and undoubtedly extends 

 through the West Indies, Central America, and Mexico. 



There is no apparent reason why the Hevea tree should not be a 

 regular farm asset in many countries of tropical America. Only the 

 lack of knowledge and the absence of the plant material can explain 

 the absence of a rubber industry in tropical regions of farm produc- 

 tion. Few crops can be handled with simpler tools or less machin- 

 ery. The native farmers of the East Indies are now producing 

 rubber to better advantage than the owners of large plantations. 

 The use of motor transportation is extending in the Tropics, and 

 the countries that can produce rubber should seek to supply their 

 own needs. 



The tropical world is rapidly becoming accessible to civiliza- 

 tion, and even greater transformations may be expected than have 

 occurred in temperate regions. Rubber gives us new powers that 

 are producing magical changes in human life, in all civilized coun- 

 tries. A century ago the experiments of Hancock and Goodyear 

 were being made, which opened the period of industrial invention 

 and exploitation of rubber. Sixty years later the tropical forests 

 of both hemispheres had been ravaged of their wild rubber. Only 

 three decades have elapsed since plantation rubber began to be 

 available in practical quantities. No other event in history has 

 changed the world so rapidly as the domestication of the Brazilian 

 rubber tree. 



