<4 



year-old trees about two feet high for less than a dollar a piece. It wa» 

 reported that two English companies were about to begin operation in 

 Trinidad and were proposing to invest a combined capital of $5,000,000 

 while private enterprise would probably bring $2,000,000 more to the 

 island, making a total $7,000,000 prospective capital to be invested in 

 that one locality. Other islands were becoming interested. In Gren- 

 ada seeds were in demand, with the prospect that a very considerable 

 acreage will be set out. 



The most interesting point under discussion in relation to rubber- 

 planting in the British West Indies is a series of experiments now 

 being carried on in London and Trinidad, bv which it is proposed to se- 

 cure rubber from year-old trees of the Castilloa elastka. It has been 

 found that seeds sown broadcast over a prepared field will yield an 

 abundant crop of young trees, which at about a year old can be cut and 

 sent to a factory where, with ordinary machinery operating a simple 

 process, 8 per cent, of fine rubber can be extracted from the young 

 shoots. This can be done in the laboratory. It is claimed that the pro- 

 cess is a simple one, that but little machinery is necessary, and that in 

 the future the world's rubber supply will be secured from an annual crop 

 of young trees sown on cultivated estates, and not from remote forests as 

 at pre-sent. A series of experiments has shown the young tree contains 

 about 8 per cent, of rubber, which would at present prices return an es- 

 timated profit of $200 to $400 per acre. The extraction of rubber from 

 young shoots has been accomplished chemically in the laboratory, but 

 whether it can be applied to economic production of rubber on a large 

 scale remains to be seen. 



Castilloa elastica will grow almost anywhere, but it will yield a 

 profitable flow of milk only under favourable conditions, and these con- 

 ditions are dependent on the geological formations and topographical 

 features surrounding the trees. To form an opinion in regard to these 

 matters requires an economic geologist of some skill, and because of this 

 tact the greatest losses will be made, for, as it is in mining and kindred 

 enterprises requiring technical skill, uninformed people always consid- 

 er themselves competent to judge, and most of them will have no use 

 for the trained observer. As rubber-trees will grow almost anywhere, 

 and as the period of waiting before a crop can be expected is a long one, 

 the success that some will make, afford an example on which to secure 

 money and lose it, to the profit of promoters and their associates who will 

 claim to be thoroughly posted and to control lands that fulfill every re- 

 quirement. 



By forestry cultivation 1 mean the care of rubber trees in their 

 natural forests, assisting nature to reproduce them; by husbandry I 

 mean the cultivation of rubber-trees in plantations and an attempt to 

 force them under conditions different from their natural surroundings. 



Opinions in regard to suitable rubber lands vary to an unusual 

 extent. This is because many observers have noted one species of rub- 

 ber-producing tree and its special surroundings, but have never noted 

 all the conditions common to the several species. In America rubber is 

 mostly produced from Castilloa elastica, and several species of Hevea 



