AGRICULTURAL BULLETIN 



OF THE 



5TRAIT5 



AND 



FEDEKATED MALA/ 5TATE5. 



No. 6.] JUNE, 1910. [Vol. IX 



HISTORICAL NOTES ON THE RUBBER 

 INDUSTRY. 



When history is written, even of such a subject as the story of 

 discoveries and inventions connected with the rubber industry, it is 

 advisable that it should be not only complete but accurate. We are 

 led to this observation by reading certain articles in the recent 

 numbers of the India Rubber Journal and India Rubber World and 

 Dr. Willis' "Agriculture in the Tropics". In these papers. the in- 

 completeness and inaccuracy lies in the account of the so-called 

 re-discovery of wound-response, which it was first claimed was an 

 original discovery by Messrs. Willis and Parkin, in 1899, but later as 

 a re-discovery of a phenomenon known to the Amazons seringueiros 

 and some other points. 



The discovery that the second and later tappings of a rubber tree 

 produce a greater flow of latex than the first is one that no one can 

 possibly overlook who taps a tree consecutively for a few days run- 

 ning and notes the result. 



In the India Rubber Journal of March 21, 1910, an account is given 

 of an article in Science Progress, by Mr. Parkin, who visited Ceylon 

 in 1899, but unfortunately did not visit Singapore, where he would 

 have found not only a much larger collection of rubber-producing 

 plants, and a much greater number of Para rubber trees of good size, 

 but also that experiments in rubber tapping had been carried on for 

 ten years previously, and that the phenomenon of wound-response 

 had been known for many years. 



One ii glad to see that he mentions the work done by Dr. 

 Trimen, and the interest he took in the possibilities of profitable 

 cultivation of Hevea hraziliensis, for Dr. Trimen has not of late years 

 received the share of credit for his work in this matter and in other 

 agricultural, horticultural and botanical work that was due to him. 



