48 THE WHOLE ART OF RUBBER-GROWING 



to have very quickly manifested its remarkable 

 powers, for in April 1878 it began to flower, and by 

 the end of the year Dr. Thwaites, who was then in 

 charge of the Botanical Gardens there, was distri- 

 buting copious supplies of seeds to Burmah, Madras, 

 and Singapore, all produced from the fifty plants 

 sent from Kew in September 1877. Meantime, living 

 plants of Manihot having been despatched from 

 England to Fiji Islands, Jamaica, Dominica, Java, 

 Sydney, Trinidad, Queensland, and Zanzibar, the 

 Kew authorities regarded their work finished as re- 

 gards the Ceara rubber, and were content to await 

 results of their labours from reports as to the be- 

 haviour of the tree throughout the wide extent of the 

 alien lands to which it had been despatched. 



Many of these reports were subsequently incorpor- 

 ated in the familiar Kew " Bulletins " which appear 

 from time to time. They were unanimous in praise 

 of the Manihot as a hardy precocious plant adaptable 

 to any soil, capable of withstanding great drought 

 and yet providing withal a most valuable asset in 

 any scheme of tropical plantation work. It is in- 

 teresting to record that at this period experiments 

 which were carried out in the Straits Settlements, 

 and which should have at the most merely settled 

 once and for all the oft-disputed point as to whether 

 or no the Hevea and Manihot can flourish together 

 on soil and in situations suitable to the first-named, 

 were regarded by the authorities in the light of a 

 verdict for the rejection of the Manihot in favour of 

 the Hevea. The former was found to be utterly 

 unsuitable for the damp moist lands of these parts, 



