THE {HAWAIIAN 
FORESTER I AGRICULTURIST 
Vol. V NOVEMBER, 1908 No. 11 
We are fortunate in being able to present in this number the 
report of Mr. Fred. T. P. Waterhouse on the cultivation of rub- 
ber, written as a result of his recent visit to Ceylon and to the 
Malay States in the interest of the rubber growers of Hawaii and 
of the Commissioners of Agriculture and Forestry. 
Since the first commercial planting of Ceara rubber trees in 
the Hawaiian Islands, now some eight years ago, the general 
lack of information as to the proper system of planting and 
process of collecting the latex, directed the attention of Hawaiian 
growers to Ceylon and the East Indies, where the cultivation of 
rubber producing trees had been carried on for many years upon 
an extensive and profitable scale. As the industry in this Terri- 
tory increased and the earlier plantations developed towards a 
producing stage, the necessity for more accurate information 
upon many important questions affecting the production of rub- 
ber in all its stages, became more and more urgent. At this time, 
Mr. Fred T. P. Waterhouse, who was already about to under- 
take a visit to the Malay Peninsula to investigate the rubber in- 
dustry there, was commissioned by the Board of Agriculture and 
Forestry of Hawaii to extend his itinerary with a view to procure 
sufficient information to assist Hawaiian planters generally. The 
result of Mr. Waterhouse's investigations are published in full 
in this number. 
Hitherto the bulk of the world's rubber has been derived 
from uncultivated trees, but the extraordinary development of 
the economic uses of rubber and the depletion of the world's 
natural supplies, has in the last few years called into existence 
in nearly all countries whose climatic conditions are favorable, 
extensive plantings of rubber producing plants. In the future, 
the demand for rubber must more and more be met by the culti- 
vated product, and the forest supplies must eventually cease or 
become negligible. 
Although the cultivation of rubber has already been engaged 
in profitably for some years, it is a remarkable fact that many of 
the most important factors to the success of the industry are yet 
little understood, and the relative value of many processes of 
operation are yet undetermined. As regards such essential opera- 
tions as the most profitable number of trees to the acre to plant, 
the method and frequency of tapping, the collection and manipula- 
