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done by planters to improve the natural production. 

 The moral is obvious, and is, I think, fully realized by 

 leading rubber planters. Already important improve- 

 ments in production have been effected and the cost so 

 considerably reduced on many estates that the com- 

 mercial success of synthetic rubber seems a highly 

 improbable contingency. 



In all industries risks have, of course, to be taken, 

 and there are some against which no human foresight 

 can provide. It has more than once been suggested 

 that it is by no means without the range of possibility 

 that tyres might be constructed on a different principle, 

 involving the use of metal with little or even no rubber. 

 The way to minimize this risk is to extend the industrial 

 uses to which rubber is applied, and definite steps are, 

 it is understood, now being taken to this end. 



I have made this brief allusion to the rubber problems 

 of to-day because they point to a condition of affairs 

 which, so long as it is allowed to continue, is a serious 

 menace to the proper progress of tropical agriculture. 

 The extraordinary development of the rubber-growing 

 industry has, from the scientific standpoint, taken us 

 unawares. A large and rapidly increasing industry was 

 suddenly confronted with a number of questions which 

 no one could properly answer, for the good reason that 

 the necessary knowledge did not exist. The exact 

 origin, nature, and functions in the tree of the latex 

 which carries the rubber were not known, and are not 

 precisely known even to-day. These problems belong 

 mainly to the regions of botanical physiology and of 

 chemistry, but had been little investigated. They lie 

 at the root of the many practical questions which arise 

 in connection with the production and flow of latex, the 

 relation of latex production to the nutrition of the tree, 

 and the methods of securing a steady production of 

 latex without undue interference with the vitality and 

 growth of the tree. Little was known as to the effect 

 on the tree of the continuous removal of latex or of the 

 relative effect of different methods of tapping. The 

 consequence was that these investigations have had to 

 be carried out while the plantations waited for the know- 

 ledge, which has now been largely gained in part 

 through observations and experiments made by practical 

 planters. 



