6 
ing ine the heat is often extreme. It is excessively dry, the 
unt of rainfall, even in the short rainy season, being but 
eae Except for some large yuccas, and a few leafless 
species, trees are almost wanting, and the shrubs are mostly low 
and stunted. Characteristic shrubby species are Covillea, Ephe- 
dra, Fouquieria, several species of Atripler and Artemisia, or so- 
called sage-bush, and many Cactaceae. Among these shrubs oc- 
curs one, namely, Parthentune aes which is an important 
rubber-yielder, and therefore ca “ guayule,” the Indian equiv- 
lent for ‘‘ wild rubber.” It is a i shrub of some two or three 
feet in height, of robust and densely branching habit, and some- 
what gregarious. The stem is rarely so thick as the wrist, and 
branches from the base, the branches being rather short and stout. 
This shrub is of very slow growth, requiring probably forty or 
ae years to reach its full size. It is as yet too little known to 
nable us to say how many years it must grow before it will yield 
eee rubber to be worth gates but this is believed to re- 
quire fifteen years or more. Little is known about its natural 
methods of reproduction, but it appears to propagate sparingly, in 
the desert, from seeds. The prospects for a new crop of rubber 
within a human generation, when all the shrubs of a district have 
been uprooted, are therefore very poor. Advantage has been 
taken of this aes by those engaged in exploiting it, to bring 
about a monopoly. aving purchased all the most important 
guayule ne nae offered to purchase the shrubs collected from 
the outlying districts. The price, at first $10 per ton, has been 
advanced to $130, a price so high as to tempt the collectors to 
uproot it, a process which is certain to exterminate it except on 
the company’s own lands 
When it was first suggested that rubber could be obtained from 
this shrub, a member of the daisy family, the greatest incredulity 
was encountered, and the enlisting of capital in the enterprise 
was a matter of extreme difficulty. At present, the total capitali- 
zation of the interests engaged in this enterprise is said to be 
about $130,000,000, and there is every prospect that even on this 
great scale, the business will be very profitable. 
The collection of this variety is by a method unknown else- 
