58 RUBBER 



experiment in rubber cultivation, and in the course 

 of the next few years supplies were sent to Queensland, 

 Java, Fiji, Borneo, German East Africa, and Jamaica. 

 But in most cases the packages went to botanists — 

 with an odd exception or two, planters and business 

 men in general would have nothing to do with rubber 

 cultivation. 



Presently, the planters in the Malay Peninsula found 

 themselves in a very desperate position. They had 

 been growing coffee, and doing splendidly with the 

 crop, but conditions now conspired to cut down their 

 profits to such an extent that their only chance of not 

 being utterly ruined was to give up competing in the 

 coffee market. In despair they began to plant Hevea. 

 This change only took place as recently as 1895. And 

 still the planters of Ceylon could afford to laugh at 

 the idea of anyone trying to make money out of rubber- 

 growing — they were doing well with their tea. 



The pioneers in Malay had a very hard struggle to 

 keep their heads above water whilst their rubber-trees 

 were growing. They had to wait five years before 

 they could begin tapping, and few indeed were the 

 people with sufficient faith in what the harvest would 

 be to advance them any money for working expenses. 



Came the day when motor-cars got so far beyond 

 being a fashionable craze that people began to realize 

 they would soon be a necessary means of locomotion 

 in this age when everyone is in such a hurry. Rubber 

 tyres were going to be so much used in the near future, 

 said someone to somebody else, that it looked as if we 

 should want more rubber than was being supplied 

 from the forests. The idea spread, and by 1898 a 

 few more people had become enthusiastic about rubber 



