57 



RUBBER IN JAMAICA A FAILURE. 



The cultivation of any kind of rubber plant known is, according 

 to the Director of Agriculture in Jamaica, a failure. He writes in the 

 Report of the Work of the Department of Agriculture for 1909 (Sup- 

 plement to Jamaica Gazette, September 2, 1909), as follows 



** I regret to report that I am unable, after careful study of the 

 matter, to recommend the planters in Jamaica to spend money in the 

 cultivation of any rubber producing tree yet tested in this island. 

 The Para rubber is quite unsuitable. It flourishes in hot, moist 

 climate, and on stiff clay soil. Lack of rain for ten days is a serious 

 set-back to Hevea braziliensis, where it is grown on modern lines for 

 rubber production. 



It is significant that though the department has been distributing 

 this tree for the past 25 years, there are no trees of any size to be 

 found in the island. The largest is at Castleton Gardens, and this 

 tree, although nearly thirty years of age, yields latex with great 

 reluctance. The department spent over £500 two years ago in 

 importing Para rubber seeds from Singapore, in response to the 

 glowing reports from the East. 



There is serious reason to believe that this enterprise is doomed 

 to failure in Jamaica, and that planters have been ill-advised to spend 

 money thereon." 



Mr. Robert Craig, who kindly sends a copy of this report, does 

 not intend, it appears, from his letter, to give up entirely all attempts, 

 but sticks to his attempts, experimentally at least, with a thoroughly 

 English perseverance. He says that his plants, though they stood 

 the long draught wonderfully, have made no wood, many, twenty 

 feet high, being no thicker than a fishing-rod. This method of growth 

 one has not rarely seen here, but then our trees pick up after that 

 and become stouter. 



It would be very interesting to discover exactly what was the 

 cause of the failure of this plant in Jamaica. A careful physiological 

 and anatomical examination of the trees, and an account of their 

 environment, soil, rainfall, temperature, sunshine and general meteo- 

 rological conditions, would probably solve the problem as to why 

 this plant, which grows so easily under all sorts of conditions here, 

 is a failure in the West Indies. Our knowledge of the circumstances 

 which in the tropics makes a tree a success or a failure, is at present 

 far too scanty. It is one of the subjects which could only be dis- 

 covered by a good staff of scientific men in a well-equipped Botanical 

 Laboratory, a thing which does not exist in any of the Botanical 

 Gardens of the Empire. 



Here " a stiff clay soil " which the Director quotes as a factor 

 in its success, is by no means a necessity. The tree grows well in 

 low-lying swampy soil if drained, and on rocky laterite-hills as well. 



