8 



the cultivated estates can supply it at 2,s. 6d. per lb., 

 the present importance of African sorts, and even some 

 American kinds, will not be maintained. Now, it is 

 fairly well known that the majority of Britishi rubber- 

 growing companies in the East have arranged' for the 

 sale of their produce through London firms; very few 

 Liverpool houses 'being represented in such concerns. 

 The Eastern industry, in virtue of the acreage already 

 planted with Para rubber trees, can certainly hope to 

 turn out twice the quantity exiported from the whole of 

 Africa. _ ^Ve 'have therefore to face a probable export 

 of cultivated Para second onily in quantity to that from 

 American ports, and a possible dtecline in many African 

 and other medium sorts ; this means that the London 

 firms oomtroMing the cultivated rubber supplies in the 

 East will yearly beoooie more limportanit, and must ulti- 

 mately draw away a large paft of the trade from other 

 English and Continental centres. 



Rubberites on Board. 



But I am digressing. I must fijst deal with the rub- 

 ber influences on board. Previous remarks have indi- 

 cated that the writer has always been fond of plants; 

 my particular weakness has been in the way of micro- 

 scopic analyses of parts of plants, and especially of those 

 structures wherein products of comimercial importance 

 daily accumulate. The organization of motionless series 

 of plant tissues is fascinating, even diough it is so im- 

 perifecLly understood. A study of the origin, structure 

 and function of the milk channels in numerous rubber- 

 yielding plants creates a feeling akin to fondness for such 

 parts ; the planter becomes quite attiaohed' to the trees 

 which he has raised from seed, and tendered and ex- 

 amined at e\'ery period of their development. But, to 

 the rubber business man on board' the N.D.L. ss. " Prinz 

 Eitel Friedrich " matters are viiewed in quite another 

 light. One passenger, so generously minded as to con- 

 sider facts to be of doubtful value, explained a few ideas 

 he had in mind regarding an estaite he proposed to plant 

 with rubber trees and subsequently sell to a company ; 

 when I asked him which species he intended growing, he 

 quickly observed that he had no practical knovvledge of 



