April 1, 1899.] THE TEOPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
729 
WEST AFRICAN RUBBER. 
THE "KICKXIA AFEICANA." 
THE THREATENED DESTRUCTION OF A VALUABLE 
INDUSTRY. 
(By an Occasional Correspondent.) 
Kiclcxia Afncana is the botanical name of a rubber- 
vieldin<^ tree, erroneously known to many, even m 
West Africa, as the Lagos Rubber Tree, although its 
commercial utility was first recosnised on the Gold 
Coast, where it was regarded as an important source 
of trade loug before energetic little Lagos rubbed its 
half-opened sleepy commercial eyes, and fortunately 
for itself rediscovered it when the cycling craze set the 
world a wheel and createdja demand for rubber which 
has a) ways overlapped the supply and will always con- 
tinue to do so, considering the number of dormant 
industries involving its nse that will leap into activity 
and outpace any additional supply. 
I am almost tempted to digress into describing 
the marvels of the West African bush, where trees 
yielding rubber, incredibly long bark fibre valuable 
timber, gums, and various sorts of oil &c., flourish 
Bide by side with others carrying lurking death in 
their wood, bark, flowers, leaves, and fruit— all joined 
together as it were, in weird comradeship by mter- 
lacin'' creepers, including the world-famed Strophanthus, 
whose seeds are almost worth their weight in gold 
It is I think generally admitted that the coagulated 
milk of the Kickxia forms the principal rubber supply 
of West Africa. The economic value of this supply 
has progressed by leaps and bounds for a few years 
iQ each of our East African Colonies, Protectorates, 
etc. and declined as rapidly after reaching an nnex- 
pected climax that has puzzled colonial ofacials, par- 
ticularly those immediately connected with revenue 
and financial departments. The diminution m the 
output has been brought about not by the diversion 
of this particular branch of trade industry to French 
or Gernaan spheres of commercial, competitive acti- 
vity, but by 
IGNORANT, WASTEFUL, AND DEPLOEABLY SUICIDAL METHOD 
adopted by the Aborigines in tapping the milk from 
the Vtiferous inner bark in such a destructive way, 
and at such unreasonable times, that thousands of 
trees have died from exhaustion, deprivation of the 
chance of bark healing and recuperation by «oseason^ 
able tapping, and unnecessarily deep scorings through 
the barks into the wood of the tree, rendering it 
an invitingly easy prey to a destructive g'^^-'^b or mag- 
got with a predilection for the wood of the Kickxia, 
and a prolific fecundity that is simply astoundiuj?. 
Whether the maggot is the progeny of a b^^'^tie la 
an entomologically transitional state like the cofied 
borer, palm weevil. &c., I have not determined from 
lack of opportunity for scrutinous observation; but 
that it attacks the exposed wood of the Kickxia, with 
fata' results is a certainty, preventable by judicious 
tapping, as I sbaU subsequently show. 
Besides the supply from the Kiclccia, 
RUBBER IS ALSO OBTAINED FROM THREE SPECIES 
OF VINE, 
principally Laudolphia. forming, however only a 
sixth or seventh of the total rubber output of West 
Africa Three kinds of Ficus also yield a commercially 
nnimpoitant supply of what is called paste rubber. 
This is capable, however, of vast improvement, wbilo 
in a milky state, by the use of the proper coagulating 
fluid. Tho rubber from the vines and hcus being 
comparatively unimportant, I shall confine my 
descriptive attention to the Kickxia. which is, must 
be, and is easily capable of being, not only the prop 
but tho buttress of tho fast decliuing West African 
Rubber Trado Industry. It is, moreover, an easily 
cultivable plantation rubber, and, being indigenous, 
po<!se3ac3 n'productivu advantages it would be 
fatnou^y sui.'idal to overlook. There are certainly 
exoellont spocies like the four kinds ot Hcvea of 
Brazil the Cii.-<lilloa Ela^lica of South America and 
Mexico, and iho Ficus EMica of Assam and India 
that imbue hopes of prosporoua alternatives, but, alas, 
delusive hopes, because the seeds lose their vitality 
with such disappointing rapidity. Hence what is 
really urgently needed in West Africa is an indigenous, 
easily propagable rubber that will give bushnien the 
minimum of trouble in planting and growing from 
seed ill the bush to continually supply substitutes, 
growing and mature, to replace trees killed by 
destructive tapping. 
It will thus be seen that the aboriginal bushman, the 
tapping producer, cannot be depended upon to con- 
serve Kickxia from the destructive effects of bad 
tapping. It will be conclusively seen under the 
heading Seed that the Kickxia is easily and inexpen- 
sively propagable, although the peculiarity of its com- 
parative isolation seems to militate against the fact. 
Dr. Stapf's amplification of Bentham s description 
under tho heading Apocynaceoe in the " Flora of 
Tropical of Africa," is in the main, accurate. The 
lithographed illustration of a pair of follicles forming 
a supplement to the Kew Bulletin No. lOG, for October, 
1895, is slightly misleading. /I'he follicles I have 
plucked from the tree are on an average 8 inches long 
and planoconvex. They split opsn when perfectly 
mature in a straight line, equidistant from the longi. 
tudinal ridges, on the plane face. 
SEED. 
The Kickxia flowers in the dry or Harmattan season; 
simultaneously shedding its seed from mature folli- 
cles developed from the previous year's flowering, 
Having often donned climbing spurs and a circum- 
ferential supporting rope, 1 have climbed thd 
Kickxia, remaining amongst the branches for hours 
watching theseedfall. This they cannot possibly do 
till the follicle has entirely split from base to tip ; 
even then they float down singly to the rhythmia 
movement of the tree's gigantic arms in the breeze, 
leaving the pod first in the centre. The follicles are 
tightly packed with seed pointing tipwards, the 
reversedsilkyhairsattached with thebasalawn pointing 
in the same direction. On a slightly breezy day I 
have seen thousands parachute down— none per- 
pendicularly ; all point downwards with the basal 
awn and supporting silky hairs keeping the seed in 
an upright position for some time, as if nature 
desired the radicle point to penetrate the soil. Un- 
fortunately this interesting provision of nature to 
assist germination is counteracted in the dense bush 
by preventing under-growth and the equally deterring 
carpet of leaves, on which the seed invariably alights 
to quickly rot or abortively germinate; out of soil, 
assisted by the warm, humid, equable temperature of 
the dense bush. This being so, it is quite evident 
that hardly one seed in many million has even the 
soupi^on of a chance of germinating to some purpose. 
For these reasons the Kickxia grows in singular iso- 
lation like all trees in dense forests with winged, 
light, delicate seed. Its capacity for reproduction, 
however, is great, and easily convertible into an ac- 
complished fact if follicles were colleited from trees, 
the seed taken from them and planted in the bush. 
If the different Colonial and Protectorate Govern- 
ments of West Africa would only encourage the 
gathering of the seed, which is simple enough, and 
persuade the natives to give them the ghost of a 
chance of germinating in soil in the Irish. lam fully 
persuaded that within seven years from the initiation 
of this precautionary measure, they will have 
RE-CREATED A RUBBER INDUSTRY 
that will not only prove a reliably constant source of 
reactive revenue, but will soon outrival the everlasting 
palm oil and p.ilui kernels that havo reached and 
declined from the zenith of remuneration owing to 
cheaper substilutcs and the volition of industry re- 
quiring their reduced use to Belgium, Gormauy, and 
America. 
Tho Gold Coast colony, with tracks, paths, and 
roads into the interior, has special facilities for coining 
in contact with rubbor-gatheriug bushmen, and 
being h-.ndicapped for want of waterways, bulky 
prodnco like palm-oil and pvlm-kornels arc with 
extreme difficalty conveyed to the coast. Rubber, on 
tho contrary, is extremely valuablo for bulk, and 
easilv tronaportable, and short of present or proapeo- 
