384 



are quite unsuited for cultivation, and are never likely to come into 

 competition with the cultivated Heveas and Ficus. Funtumia, 

 again does not seem according to the latest reports on its growth 

 and return likely to be of great importance in the future. Over the 

 large area which produced these rubbers and which is now nearly 

 exhausted of its stock, there is little or no ground suited for the 

 cultivation of those rubbers which are possible to cultivate remune- 

 ratively. The volume of rubber produced by this area must 

 therefore be supplied by the increasing area of cultivation in the 

 Malay Peninsula, Ceylon and a few other parts of the world. 



Mexico and Northern Brazil may perhaps be able to supply 

 Castilloa and Hevea rubber in sufficient amount to replace the 

 denuded forests of the Amazons. But in the meantime the demand 

 is increasing and it will be long before the product can possibly be 

 produced in sufficient quantity to fill even the present demand. 

 Rubber then is almost the ideal cultivation for the planter. It is a 

 product of universal, everyday use, and its area of production is 

 distinctly a limited one. It is absurd to compare it with coffee a 

 product of universal use but with an enormous producing area, 

 practically the whole of the tropics, or Cinchona a plant of more 

 limited area but very limited use. Both of these it is obvious could 

 easily be overproduced, as indeed is the case of most of the other 

 tropical products. Rubber in fact'is the only product known to me 

 which while it has an universal use has so limited an area of produc- 

 tion and it is also unique in having practically disappeared from a 

 large area which supplied a considerable portion of the world's 

 supply, and in which it can never be replaced. Under these 

 exceptional circumstances it does not seem probable that this 

 product is likely to be overproduced for very many years if it ever 

 is at all. — Editor. 



RUBBER DISEASES: LATEST MYCOLOGICAL 



NOTES. 



Result of Injuries to the Cambium, Etc. 



Mr. T. PETCH, the mycologist of Peradeniya, has the following 

 article in the September issue of the Magazine of the Agricultura 

 Society : — 



In Mr. Richard Hoffman's final article on rubber cultivation, 

 in the Financial Ne7vs, he discusses briefly the possibility of fungoid 

 disease and dismisses the subject with the remark that it is " very 

 improbable, for the tree, being deciduous (viz., shedding its leaves 

 annually), is not likely to contract a permanent leaf disease." 



It is hoped that no planter will be led by this statement to 

 neglect any suspicious appearance on the ground that the leaves 



