22 COMMERCIAL BOTANY. 



velopment of India-rubber has created a new trade, which 

 gives a profitable employment to those classes whose means 

 of subsistence ceased with the suppression of the illegal 

 slave trade. The total export from the above-named 

 places exceeded, in 1880, 1,000 tons. The price also rose 

 rapidly at this period from 140 to 250 per ton. In a 

 report on the trade of Mozambique for the year 1880, 

 Consul O'Neill says : " It is curious to note the marvel- 

 lously rapid development of the India-rubber industry. In 

 1873 only 443 worth of India-rubber passed through the 

 Custom House of Mozambique. In 1876 it reached the 

 value of 22,198, and in 1879 it exceeded 50,000. It 

 would seem now almost to have reached its climax, while 

 the present rude method of collecting this produce prevails, 

 and until communications with the interior are properly 

 opened up, for the careless cutting of the tree by the un- 

 taught hands of the natives has resulted in the destruction 

 of enormous tracts of India-rubber forest near the coast." 



L. Petersiana. This is noted in the " Kew Report " for 

 1880 as a new species, furnishing a third variety or quality 

 of rubber on the East Coast. The plant was described as 

 growing near Tanga, on the coast of the mainland opposite 

 Pemba. The mode of preparing the rubber is said to be 

 quite different from that practised with the other kinds, 

 inasmuch as the juice is collected in a fluid state by tapping 

 and then coagulating it by heat. The quality of the rubber, 

 however, is said to be inferior to that of the other species. 



To Sir John Kirk is due the credit of having introduced 

 to the Royal Gardens, Kew, living plants of four species of 

 Zanzibar rubber-yielding Landolphias, from which supplies 

 have been sent to the British colonies. From a return of 

 the imports of caoutchouc into London and Liverpool during 

 the year 1889 it seems that 5,919 tons were imported, 

 against 5,080 tons in 1888. 



BORNEO RUBBER. A good deal of uncertainty lias always 



