14 THE WHOLE ART OF RUBBER-GROWING 



in less than five days many of them were ij feet in 

 height. The following year about 2000 plants raised 

 from these seeds were sent to Ceylon at Sir Joseph 

 Hooker's suggestion and planted at Peradeniya in 

 the Government Botanical Gardens there. 



About the same time Mr. Cross was given a com- 

 mission by the Indian Government to procure live 

 plants of the Manihot Glaziovii from Brazil. He 

 arrived at Kew on 21 November 1876, bringing 

 1080 seedlings without soil. About 40 per cent, sur- 

 vived and 100 plants from these were subsequently 

 sent to Ceylon. The following year witnessed the 

 beginning of the rubber-growing industry in our 

 Eastern possessions, and both in 1878 and 1879 

 Dr. Thwaites, the Director at Peradeniya, was busy 

 distributing cuttings from the Kew r consignments to 

 planters in Ceylon. Propagations from cuttings 

 supplied in 1877 from the Peradeniya plants were 

 also successfully made at the Heneratgoda Gardens. 

 It was here in April 1881 that the first acclimatised 

 Hevea flowered, thirty-six seeds being secured. At 

 Peradeniya the trees showed no flowers till 1884. 

 From that year onwards, however, the output of 

 seeds increased enormously and supplies were dis- 

 tributed broadcast all over the rubber zone in 

 Southern India and the Mid-East. The authorities, 

 guided no doubt by the faithful report of their expert, 

 who had found the trees in Brazil flooded at their 

 base for a considerable period of the year, induced 

 planters to select sites liable to be covered with 

 water when the river was in flood. In every case 

 disaster followed. Three days' flooding was enough 



