40 RUBBER 



active steps to improve the quality of African rubber. 

 You will understand why they are so anxious to bring 

 about changes for the better in this respect when I tell 

 you more about the growing popularity of plantation 

 rubber, the rival of all wild rubber. 



There is one kind of rubber plant which all of you 

 must have seen. It is grown here in pots, and is much 

 used for indoor decoration. Its botanical name is 

 Ficus elastica. 



When you see Ficus elastica, in its native element, 

 you can hardly believe that it is exactly the same 

 species of vegetation as the small " rubber plants " 

 whose acquaintance you have made in many a hall 

 and drawing-room. At home, on the lower slopes of 

 the moxmtains of Northern India — in Darjeeling, 

 Sikkim, Bhotan, Assam, and Burma — and in Java 

 and Sumatra, it is a big tree, which has very peculiar 

 habits. In the early years of its life the tree has a 

 single trunk, with numerous branches. The branches 

 soon begin to let down bush-ropes, which in growing 

 reach to the ground. Here they enter the soil and take 

 root, and as these new roots spread, the bush ropes 

 develop into big trunks. A well-established Ficus is 

 a most curious sight. It has claimed for its own an 

 extensive ground space, the whole surface of which is 

 occupied by exposed roots. Rising from their midst 

 is a crowd of large trunks ; and high and low among 

 the branches are the aerial roots, from which all but 

 one of the crowd came into existence as bush-ropes. 



To get at the Ficus milk, the natives hack great 

 pieces out of the trunks of the trees. Like the Africans, 

 they sacrifice quality to quantity in their general 

 methods of collecting and preparing their rubber. 



