Miscellaneous. 



526 



[December, 1910 



changing valuable and interesting plants, 

 all the colonial gardens of the British 

 Empire have had the valuable assistance 

 of the great central garden at Kew in 

 London. Kew has obtained from each 

 colony the valuable plants of that 

 colony, and has distributed them to 

 other colonies. 



The wor k done by the Botanic Gardens 

 in general has been two-fold ; first of all 

 the introduction of useful and interest- 

 ing plants from other countries, and in 

 the second the investigation of the uses 

 of the local plants of the country in 

 which it is situated. This second branch 

 of work has so far been greatly sub- 

 ordinated to the first, but now bids fair 

 to become of considerable importance. 



Now, with regard to the introduction 

 of useful plants from abroad, it is 

 obvious that as time goes on, this branch 

 of work must decrease in importance, as 

 fewer and fewer remain to be introduced, 

 and ultimately must cease for want of 

 anything to introduce. This is in fact 

 the general history of the gardens in 

 Ceylon, which for a long time have been 

 almost unable to find anything of value 

 to bring into the country. In the newer 

 colonies, however, as for example those 

 of the West African Coast, the gardens 

 still have many important things to 

 introduce, as cacao, which was brought 

 into the Gold Coast about 20 years ago, 

 and now forms the basis of a large and 

 valuable industry, 



This is one objection to Botanic Garden 

 work, and another is that they work on 

 too small a scale to give any real test of 

 the way in which the introduced plants 

 will succeed in the country, or to supply 

 seed upon any large scale. The history of 

 the now large and important rubber in- 

 dustry of the Bast, which is entirely the 

 creation of the gardens of Kew, Ceylon, 

 and Singapore, may be cited as a good 

 example. An expedition to the Amazon 

 Valley in 1875 brought the seeds of the 

 so-called Para rubber tree, Hevea brasi- 

 liensis, to Kew, and a supply of young 

 plants was sent out, chiefly to Ceylon, but 

 also to Singapore and elsewhere. Forty- 

 eight young trees were established in one 

 of the branches of the Peradeniya 

 Gardens, and began to seed in the 

 early eighties. A few seeds only were 

 available for a long time, nnd were 

 sent chiefly to other Botanic Gardens, 

 but about 1884 planters began to get 

 a few for trial. Little notice,- was 

 taken of them till about 1898, twenty- 

 two years after the introduction, 

 when some very successful experi- 

 ments in tapping the trees at Henarat- 

 goda were made by Mr. Parkin and the 

 writer. The results of these were so 



promising that an interest began to be 

 taken in rubber, and there was a 

 great demand for the few seeds 

 available, which were sold by auction. 

 In a few years seed began to come 

 in from the trees growing upon private 

 property, and from that time onwards 

 there has been a steady rush into 

 this cultivation, which is now a very 

 extensive one in many tropical countries, 

 But supposing that the gardens had 

 had more seed available, the cultivation 

 might have started years sooner. An 

 exactly similar history has to be related 

 of Singapore, and now the Malay States 

 are the premier country in rubber grow- 

 ing. 



With the extension of means of com- 

 munication and of postage, as well as 

 the organisation of private firms for 

 doing almost any thing, it has become 

 much more possible to introduce things 

 rapidly when they appear likely to be of 

 value. An interesting example is the new 

 rubbers lately discovered in Brazil by 

 Ule. Our first supply in Ceylon was re- 

 ceived through Kew, and a small planta- 

 tion was made, but almost at once a pri- 

 vate agencycommenced selling seed by 

 the hundred thousand, and by the time 

 that we have seed ripe on our trees at 

 Peradeniya, the tree will already be 

 fairly common in the island- 

 It is thus evident that Botanic Gardens, 

 regarded simply as a mechanism for 

 the introduction from abroad of plants 

 likely to be useful, are, to use an ex- 

 pressive Americanism, becoming played 

 out, and must, if they are to survive, 

 revise their lines of work. We shall 

 return to this subject in dealing with 

 the later scientfic factors of improve- 

 ment, 



To go on now to (2) transportation, it 

 is obvious that so long as no means of 

 transport exist, so long can no other 

 agriculture go on but the grow-what- 

 you-want-and-consume-what-you-grow 

 type. If transport is difficult and costly, 

 the agriculturist is limited in his markets, 

 whereas if it is good and cheap, he has a 

 much more extended market, and so the 

 value of his produce is multiplied, while 

 he can also grow a more varied assort- 

 ment of things with a good chance of 

 selling them at a profit. 



Water carriage may be firstconsidered. 

 Wherever there are streams of sufficient 

 size to float any kind of boat upon, this 

 method of carriage would be sure to 

 come in, and to this day it is almost the 

 only method in use in such a country as 

 the great valley of the Amazon and 

 elsewhere. Improvements have come in, 

 in the provision of steamers, of rope 

 haulage, and in other ways, but water 



