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justify the expenditure proposed, or, indeed, as to whether the plant 
would grow at all in India, we do not think it expedient to entertain 
Mr. Thomson’s proposal. We would pa icd suggest, for your Lord- 
ship’s consideration, that the Director of t ayal Gardens, Kew, 
should be asked to place himself in Tuan with Mr. Thomson, 
and if Mr. Thiselton Dyer, after due consideration of the matter, is of 
opinion ed the proposed experimental cultivation of the plant in India 
is really worthy of a trial, arrangements might be made, -— your 
Lordship's orien for the pur urehase and transmission to this e ountry of 
afew plants only, or of a small supply of the ve is procedure 
would be in keeping with the course a roved b experience, viz., 
that all new economie plants should reach India mh the Direetor of 
the Royal Gardens, Kew. 
e have, &c. 
(Signed) “DUFFERIN AND AVA. 
C. A. 
D. M. Bikstu 
The Right Hon. Viscount Cross, G.C.B., 
Her Majesty's Secretary of State for India. 
Roxarn GARDENS, Kew, to INp1A OFFICE. 
SIR, Royal Gardens, gena J € 8, 1889. 
I nave had before me Fees some time your ter [R. S&C. 
1784] of J Mes 26, 1889, forwarding a copy of sonis di with 
Mr. Robert Thomson, of Bogota, relative to the proposed introduetion 
into India of a species of Hevea which produces the rubber kno wn 
as Colombia Virgen. 
. Having regard to the very large expenditure which the Govern- 
ment of India has already incurred in Bees introduction of South 
American rubber trees into India, I confess I am not disposed to 
support any further outlay upon it. The prick vepres g Pará, Ceará, 
and Nicaragna (or Guatemala) rubber have all been successtully 
introduced into India. It now pra remains by practical experience to 
find positions in which they may be established on a sufficient scale to 
yield in the not distant future a Jonamsitisn revenue to the Govern- 
ment or to the private planter. v own conviction is that the cultiva- 
tion of these trees is emphatically a matter to be entrusted to the Forest 
nd I h 
T A ed um en in June 4th last, à eg receipt of which you 
acknowledged on the 29th following [R. S. & C. 922], of the examina- 
tion of s samples s gon om Pará-rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis), | 
‘near Mergui in seri f Ad 
3. It kb from Ne ‘Silver's report that rabber collected rom 
these trees on which it had congealed without any preparation at a 
rican rubber. 
“ Pará rubber undergoes elaborate preparation for the market. hy 
There are considerations, with which I need not ir you v y 
I E should hesitate to recommend Mr. ek -- s ea at poc - " 
cha out that the only real recommendatio 
Kehe which he wishes to introduce into. India i$ Y that its cultivation is 
ra 
