SB 



PREFACE. 



THE principal object I have in view in writing this small treatise 

 on the Cultivation and Preparation of Para Rubber, is to endeavour 

 to give to the continually increasing number of persons taking 

 up rubber cultivation such practical advice on the various matters 

 connected with that comparatively new industry as would be 

 likely to assist them in their undertaking. 



Although the cultivation of Para rubber is at the present time 

 almost limited to a few countries in the Eastern Tropics of the 

 Old World, there is every prospect of its being further extended 

 in those regions, and also of being taken up largely in the 

 Western Tropics. 



There are in Tropical Africa thousands of square miles of 

 land suitable for the cultivation of the Para rubber tree. Upon 

 a large extent of this land rubber-producing plants were at one 

 time abundant, but now year by year their number is being 

 gradually diminished, as the result of the disastrous methods of 

 tapping employed by the native rubber collectors. 



The question of replanting these areas with Para rubber trees 

 is well worth the consideration of the administrative authorities, 

 and especially those in our various West African possessions. 



In order to supplement the information here given as the 



211292 



