RUBBER PLANTING 5 



Brazilian trade was well established. For example the 

 exports from the Congo State rose from 30 tons in 1887 

 to 2000 tons in 1897. At the same date similar amounts 

 were being exported from Lagos and from the Gold 

 Coast. A thousand tons of rubber were however 

 exported from British India as early as 1873. 



Sir Clements Markham proposes Plantations. 



Herbert Wright has called attention to the fact 

 that it was Hancock who in 1834 first suggested the 

 possibility of cultivating the best kinds of rubber trees 

 in the East and West Indies. The suggestion arose on 

 account of the difficulties which Hancock and his 

 colleagues experienced even at that date in procuring 

 a sufficient supply of raw material. The actual birth 

 of the rubber planting industry, however, dates only 

 from the seventies, and is specially associated with the 

 names of Sir Joseph Hooker, at that time Director 

 of the Royal Gardens, Kew, of Sir Clements Markham 

 who occupied an important position at the India Office, 

 and with those of the collectors Collins, Cross and 

 Wickham. The success of the introduction of cinchona 

 to the East ten years earlier led Markham about 1870 

 to take up the question of the introduction of rubber to 

 India. The first step was marked by the preparation in 

 1872 of a report by James Collins, who had already 

 published an excellent account of the wild species 

 of rubber in 1868. 



