* 
253 
' A concise summary, published by Dr. Trimen in the Appendix 
to the Repert of the New Products Commission UN Papers, 
Gerken, 1881, No. 13, p. 9), is reproduced below 
“T am desirous of taking this opportunity of putting upon 
record something of the history of the introduction of the 
valuable Para rubber into the East, which has been effected at a 
large cost and with much trouble. When the PM parma ia 
et vet eres upon the enterprise, a comm 
n to Wickham, then living at Santarem, to collect ped at 
dis pe of 1 £10 per 1000. He Mes es d in obtaining 70,000 seeds 
in the Siringals of the Rio FK MR which he packed with the 
greatest care and with a full FIER of their evanescent 
vitality ; and coming straight home with them arrived at Kew 
on 14th June, 1876. The following a the whole number was 
sown ; not more, however, than “ about 3i per cent. germinated, 
some as early as the fourth day ater sowing ; and many in a few 
days reached a height of 18 inches.”—(Kew Report, 1876). At 
Sir Joseph Hooker’s suggestion, it had been previously arranged 
between the India and Colonial inn that owing to the want of 
any accessible and properly constivuted Botanical Garden in any 
part of India suitable for the growth of this completely eid ien 
species, the seedlings should be sent to Ceylon to be cultivated 
and propagated for subsequent vc ago to Burma, and Bree 
hot and moist districts of the Indian Empire. Owing to the 
plants' rapid growth wardian cases of a special form had to be 
made for their transmission, and, on August 12th, thirty-eight ^i 
these, Aegean " Hag p VON were despatched from Kew 
charge of a gardener (W. Chapman). - due course e thay Wis 
idived at Poriditiivid in very good or 
* Mr. Cross's share in the iihi of Para rubber was a 
very small one. 2 ei had been sent by the Indian Government 
u ring hom 
a 
ly Moi seedlings without soil, of which, with the zi eatest care, 
cely three per cent. could be saved. About 100 plant 
stieg ie at Kew from nie were inchoate vert to Ceylon,” 
“The cost of procuring the seeds of Para rubber, freight and 
other expenses, appears to have been no ‘er than £1,505 4s. 2d., 
the wardian cases alone costing £120, and the gardener and his 
passage £163. The whole of this large expenditure was borne 
by the Indian Government. An undertaking involving such an 
outlay as this, it is obviously beyond the power of the Execntive 
of this Colony to carry a i but in this case, it is Ceylon which 
(from climatie causes chiefly) appears likely to benefit most 
largely from the nodes ‘wai of the Government of India.’ 
EXPERIMENTAL PLANTING IN CEYLON. 
As Ceylon was adopted as the central point in the East Indies 
for the cultivation and distribution of the rubber plants intro- 
duced by the Government of India from tropical America, this 
island east took an active part in starting experimental 
plantatio 
