TREES THAT COUNT HEVEA BRASILIENSIS 23 



ment of India at this period was the entire absence 

 of any co-ordinate effort to educate the planter and 

 the native agriculturist in the art of rubber-growing 

 pure and simple. It is true that generous supplies 

 of seeds and plants were distributed wholesale, but 

 the one element to secure success the man on the 

 spot who could show how the thing was done was 

 absent in the majority of cases, with the result that 

 disaster generally followed, save only where sheer 

 good luck intervened. 



All this is altered now, however, and there is no 

 more mindful, no more enterprising, no more 

 assiduous staff in the whole world of tropical agri- 

 culture than that of the Government of India. It 

 is well to record here that the system originally 

 adopted in acclimatising the rubber tree un- 

 doubtedly lent itself to slipshod haphazard work 

 on the part of the individual planter, who kept no 

 records, so that we have to turn to the Government 

 Departments at Kew and elsewhere for any reliable 

 data as to the methods employed in the cultivation 

 of the plant and the commercial development of its 

 product. 



According to these authorities, the first experi- 

 mental tapping of the Heveas sent out by Kew to 

 Peradeniya, Ceylon, in Wardian cases (these permit 

 uninterrupted growth during the travelling period) 

 was made in October 1882 by Dr. Trimen, when the 

 trees were six years old. Five trees were so tapped, 

 and the dry rubber secured amounted to about 2j oz. 

 The sample was sent home and reported by Messrs. 

 Silver (of the Silvertown Indiarubber and Gutta- 



