9S 



[August, 1910. 



one in which progress will be slow or 

 absent, and will be a country governed 

 upon a system almost instinctively 

 repugnant to the Anglo-Saxon, who is 

 accustomed to the free competition of 

 the most completely evolved capitalist 

 system. In a country under Anglo- 

 Saxon rule, the latter system will grow 

 up beside the former, as it has done in 

 Canada and in Ceylon, and will slowly 

 submerge and probably extinguish it. 



To turn now to a consideration of the 

 third type of early agriculture which 

 became established on the American 

 continent, let us deal with that of the 

 Southern States, to which may be added 

 that of the West Indies, which was 

 exactly parallel. This was capitalist 

 agriculture, pure and simple. As we 

 have pointed out in our book upon 

 tropical agriculture, such caunot start 

 until the questions of transport and 

 labour are upon a satisfactory footing. 

 The West Indies being small islands, and 

 the eastern coast of the Southern States 

 being broken up by inlets of the sea 

 which made a large area easily accessible, 

 and the profitable crops of sugar, to- 

 bacco, and cotton being cultivated in 

 these countries, the only difficulty was 

 labour, and this was got over by the 

 importation of slaves from Africa, and 

 by the employment of convicts and 

 political prisoners from England, 



In this way all difficulty was avoided, 

 and there rapidly grew up enormous 



and profitable industries in sugar, to- 

 bacco, and cotton. The country was 

 opened up by roads from the coast, but 

 education was not provided for the 

 slaves, who could have no need of it. 



With the abolition of slavery, all this 

 was thrown out of gear, for the freed 

 slaves rather went out of their way to 

 avoid any work that was not absolutely 

 necessary to provide them with actual 

 subsistence. The result was a disastrous 

 collapse, which was greater the further 

 South, greater in the West Indies than 

 say in Alabama, greater in Alabama 

 than in Virginia. 



Only slowly has the southern half of 

 North America recovered, but it has 

 recovered in two directions, by the 

 greater willingness of the negroes to 

 work, which has rendered capitalist 

 agriculture again possible, and by the 

 development of a peasant community of 

 small holders. These latter remain, 

 however, at the foot of the ladder of 

 progress, and show little sign of such 

 advances as went on among the small 

 holders in the north- The latter, how- 

 ever, were large holders compared to. 

 the negro peasantry, for the normal 

 farm was 160 acres against not more 

 than 5 or 10. 



The small holder is handicapped in 

 the race of progress by the want of 

 capital, and he can only get over this 

 difficulty by co-operation — the lesson 

 which Ceylon requires to learn. 



GUMS, RESINS, SAPS AND EXUDATIONS 



THEHENARATGODA EXPERIMENTS 

 OF 1905-6 . 



By T. Petch. 



As is well known, tapping experiments 

 were carried out on the old Hevea trees 

 at Henaratgoda d uring 1905-6. At the 

 time of the Rubber Exhibition they were 

 described to some extent, and various 

 interim figures were made known. But 

 no discussion of the complete results 

 was ever published. The final total 

 yields were recorded in the R. B. G. 

 report for 1906, but the figures were 

 not analysed. Wright gives brief deduc- 

 tions in his "Hevea Brasiliensis " (Ed. 2), 

 but these are based on incomplete results, 

 and the figures are accepted without 

 question. 



The objects of the experiments were 

 briefly as follows :— 



(1) To determine the yield of rubber 

 from different parts of the stem, 



'2) To determine the relative value of 

 different methods of tapping. 



(3) To determine the yield obtainable 

 by tapping at different intervals. 



(4) To determine the relation between 

 yield and climatic conditions. 



(5) Experiments in " feeding the latex 

 tubes in order to increase the growth in 

 cortex." 



In "Science Progress," January, 1910, 

 Parkin gives as established facts three 

 results which are practically identical 

 with Wright's conclusions. He states :— 



(1) "Interesting experiments as to 

 yield have been carried out by the Ceylon 

 Botanic Gardens Department on the 

 original Henaratgoda trees. These bring 

 out clearly the great rubber-producing 

 capacity of the basal 6 ft. of trunk, and 

 the small yield afforded by the higher 

 parts." 



