THE TROPICAL 
AGEICULTUEIST. [Nov. 1, 1889. 
NOTES FROM BRITISH CENTRAL AF.RICA. 
Mlangi, B.C.A., 18th Aug., 1899. 
What fortunes might be made in 
RUBBER 
at present prices ; but, as a man remarked 
to me the other day, his fortune would h;bve 
been secured had his grand-father phinted 
100 acres of ficus elastica. We have the tree 
here at least a tree which answers the des- 
cription I have I'ead of it some where, most 
likely in your T.A. I have two enormous 
trees in my shade clearing and have just 
been tapping one and a man has just brought 
in 1 lb. 2 oz. of rubber for one day's work 
and I am quite sure there is a week's work 
before the tapping is finished, the rubber is 
a beautifully white sample. We have 
ANOTHER RUBBER TREE 
here Kickxla Africana which yields rather a 
sticky rubber that does not coagulate well— 
Landolphio, Kirlci and Laridolphia Petersiana 
are the common vines of the country, but 
they are few and far between. The only rub- 
ber exported from East Africa seems to be 
the produce of these two vines, the natives 
don't know how to tap the rubber producing 
trees besides the above named, we have a 
very common vine of enormous dimensions, 
about a foot in diameter is a medium-sized 
one, in which I find a large quantity of rubber. 
It simply runs from the vines when cut like 
blood from a wound, but the natives cannot 
manage it either : it is so sticky they can 
do nothing with it. I took a coixple of men 
with buckets and made them tap a vine 
holding the bucket under the wounds made 
and in one day the result was 2^ lb. of 
liquid rubber wbich I coagulated with acid. 
I don't know that this rubber vine has been 
identified, but think it must be the vine that I 
have read about being tapped in Madagascar, 
THE NATIVES HERE 
are very destructive in their method of collect- 
ing rubber. They cut down the vines, then cut 
them in handy pieces and slice pieces out 
of the bark here and there— of course only 
getting half the rubber they ought to get— 
and destroying the vines, which take many 
years to grow up again. Traders don't in- 
struct natives how to tap rubber trees or 
vines. All they want is to secure the rubber 
at as cheap a rate as possible, with the re- 
sult that there will be 
NO RUBBER IN AFRICA 
in the course of a few years. Government 
should take action in the matter. 
Only the other day I arrested a party of 
men sent out by a European trader to 
collect rubber, and thus had any number 
of vines destroyed on my land, they got 
fined £3 each or six months hard labour for 
it. Of course the men did'nt know they 
were doing wrong, having been sent by a 
white man, who by the way paid the fine 
and returned the rubber collected to me, 
I shall make him pay for the destruction of 
the vines if possible. 
This is a poor man's country. 
LAND AND LABOUR ARE CHEAP, 
and when we get a railway, perhaps the coun- 
try will opened up a bit, progress is 
slow principally owing to the country 
having got a bad name for B. W. fever. 
I don't think it is worse, if so had, than your 
tropical typhoid. The Malaria Commissioners 
begin to think they have come to the wrong 
place as they cannot get cases. 
Don't send any Ceylon men here like that 
gentleman Stephens, who turned in a funk 
from Chinde : they are not the stamp of 
men to pioneer in a country like this. I 
got a letter from that gentleman which I 
never answered. I am afraid the stamp of 
planters you have in Ceylon now-a-days, at 
least few' of them are like the old pioneers 
of coffee planting who had to suffer many 
hai'dships as well as sickness R. B 
DEPARTURE OF AN AMERICAN 
SCIENTIST. 
Dr. Edwin Mead Wilcox, of Harvard Univer- 
Bity, Cambridge Mass., U.S.A., who has been 
spending a month in Ceylon, in order to gather 
information with respect to tlie cultivation of our 
chief products, left witli Mrs. Wilcox last 
month by tlie P. and 0. " Bengal " for Singa- 
pore. There he spends a week before proceed- 
ings to Java. Dr. Wilcox writes to us as 
follows :— " Thanks to many Ceylon planters and 
tlie great fund of information tiiey all Seem to 
have. I liave secured much of value to nie in 
my work in Cuba." Dr. Wilcox, we may remind 
our readers, is eventually to take charge of the 
■Sub-Tropical Department of Harvard University 
that will be opened near Cienfuegos, in the South 
of Cuba. He will be studying tropical products 
in Java until May next year. 
♦— — — 
PLANTING NOTES. 
Rubber Troubles in S. America.— Cora- 
plaints are now made in Sao Paulo of the de- 
j-redations of the mangabeira rubber gatherers. 
They do not trouble themselves to tap the trees, 
or shrubs, but they cut them down and even cut 
the roots. Of course they are raj^idly destroying 
the sources of whiit miglit be a permanent and 
profitable industry. — Bio Neivs, Aug. 22. 
A Japanese Green Manure.— The U. S. A. 
Experiment station at San-in (Japan) has been 
•cultivating a plant known locally as umakoyashi 
iMedicago denticuldta). This has been selected 
for experiment because its cultivation and utili- 
zation, as a green manure, is considered a matter 
of special importance locally. Analyses show the 
iplant to contain 0.78 per cent of nitrogen.— 
JPlaniinq Ojnnion, Oct. 14. 
Cinnamon for Influenza. — A correspondent 
■sviites : — " As this drug is being recommended as 
a remedy for the epidemic influenza, it may be 
M'ell to caution the public against depending upon 
the culinary essence known by that name, and 
. sold at 3gw prices. This is made from cassia, a 
"bark which, whilst it is quite destitute of the 
medical virtues of the genuine article, resembles 
it so nearly in taste and odour that those requiring 
the one may receive the other. Those desirous of 
trying the remedy should obtain it from their 
chemist, und ask for genuine tincture of cin- 
namon, or spirit of cinnamon 98, and in no case 
take essence of cinnamon. Cinnamon is much 
more expensive than cassia."— 5o7<</i. AnstralvB.n 
fkqkter. 
