iuLT i, 1903.1 THE TROPICAL AGEiCULTURlS'T. 
11 
aSfree na to the relative temperatures for first and 
second firing, but while circumstances may alter 
casee, according to districts and localities, they 
Bhonld not in a single factory where the leaf is 
already scientifically prepared for the Drier. 
It occurs to me at this point, having got our 
mechanical Withering machine, why should not the 
Drier be on exactly the same principle, and occupy 
a whole compartment 300 feet by 60, with such 
modifications as might be necessary. For instance, 
it would not be feasible to dratv a current of air 
the entire length, but in the place of this, the 
gangways would iDe provided with more air-tight 
doors than would be necessary with the withering 
apparatus, and the sides of the racks would have 
to be enclosed, the air could then be exhausted 
from alternate gangways and enter by the others 
passsing over the trays horizontally ; while the 
temperature in each compartment could be fixed at 
any desired point and yet allow the tea to pass 
rapidly, and uninterrupted, from one end to the 
other.— JjjfZian PlanUrs' Gazette. 
(To he concluded.) 
♦ 
GATHERING RUBBER UNDER- 
GROUND. 
Some experiments in rubber culture in progress 
in Africa may lead to the extensive growing of a 
class of rubber plants which, while little has been 
known of them hitherto, are already of commercial 
importance. It now appears thsit the Landolphia clim- 
bers supply a smaller proportion of the African rubber 
output than has been supposed. What the French 
call Caoutchouc des herbes, and the Germans luurzel- 
hautschuh (loot rubber), is really what the natives in 
many districts have been coUectisg for several years, 
in quantities not suspected until recently. The latest 
Bcientifio investigation of the sources of African rubber 
however, confiim casual statements made from time to 
time by explorers and traders about rubber being 
obtained underground. An English physician, visiting 
missionary stations in Angola (Portuguse West Africa) 
twelve years ago, while on the Bih^ plateau, inland 
from the seaport of Benguela, and among the head- 
waters of the Kwanza river, recorded in his notes.* 
Rubber has to be dug for with hoes, only a small 
plant showing above ground, the roots, from which 
it is obtained, running along for many yards, about 
Bii inches below the surface, varying in size from a 
quarter inch to an inch and a half. These roots 
are beaten with wooden mallets and boiled in water ; 
when the rubber dissolves out it is collected and 
formed into balls, mixed a good deal with woody fiber. 
The United States consul in Angola had already 
reported, in 1891, t that about three years previously a 
new source of rubber had been discovered in the 
Bih6 country, and he was given to understand that 
the great increase in rubber shipments from the port 
of Benguela which followed had been due to this 
discovery. From a hundred tons or so yearly, before 
that period, the Benguela exports continued to in- 
increase until amounting in a single year to 500,000 
ponnds. Mr. Frank Vincent, an American traveller! 
next contributed a note on the subject : 
Governor Paula Cid told me that in the year 1887 
the exports of Benguela took a sudden jump upwards, 
owing to the appearance in the market of a new 
kind of India-rubber, which is extracted from the roots 
of a small shrub that grows spontaneously on the 
banks of certain rivers in the interior. 
♦(Reality versus Romance in South Central Africa. 
By James Johnson, m.d. New York : 1893 P 107. 
f Special Consular Reports. India-Rubber Washing- 
ton : 1892. P. 435. 
1 Actual Afcica; ;"oi: the Coming Continent. New 
YgrU 1 1893. P. 379. 
The British consn! at Loanda in 1899 reported: 
" Angoli rubber is said to come very largely from a 
small creeper which struggles over sandy soil or desert 
places, incapable apparently of other productions." 
The above quotations state precisely what has been 
found to be true of rubber gathering, not only in ' 
Angola, but iu parts of the Congo Free State, French 
Congo, and other districts iu Africa. Years later the 
Botanist Baum, travelling in the German possessions 
south of Angola, observed the collection of " root 
rubber " on which he reported fully, with photographs 
of the various operations involved* — not for the in- 
interest of the curious, but to depict a considerable 
industry along the river Kunene. Ic is true that some 
of the earlier mentions of " root rubber " confused it 
with •' Almeidina," a cheap gum exported in small 
quantities from the port of ilossemedes, in Angola, 
but not included in the customs returns of rubber ship- 
ments. The name " potatorubber," sometimes given 
to the latter, related to the appearance of the balls 
into which it was formed, and not to its source, though 
it did lead to the impression that it was dug from the 
earth as tubers. 
The botanists are yet struggliog with the uomenV 
clature of this class of rubber plants, though agreei-i^ 
that they belong to the natural order Apocymcem and 
are confined mainly to two genera — Carpodinus and 
Clinandra. The Carpodinus I anceolatus is supposed to 
yield the greater part of the rubber known as "Benguela 
niggers " and lower Congo '• thimbles." Dr. David 
Morris says :t 
The interesting point is that these are neither trees 
nor shrubby climbers, as other rubber yielding plants 
in tropical Africa. They are described as low plants 
with slender, semi'herbaceona stems oue or to two feet 
high, and white aromatic flowers. They are found in 
great abundance on the sandy expanses in the Kwango 
district south of Stanley Pool [on the Congo river], 
and from this region alone it is said that 500 tons 
of rubber are produced yearly - - - Although the 
stems contain rubber, the larger share is at present 
obtained from the creeping underground stems 
{rhizomes). These are about an inch iu diameter and 
the natives extract the rubber by rasping them in 
water and then boiling. In this way a large quantity 
of vegetable debris is taken up with the rubber and 
the quality is thereby imparled. — - The discovery 
of these remarkable rubber plants shows how far we 
still are from knowing the full extent of the sources 
whence the valuable product may be obtained. It 
is possible that these new plants may be available 
for cultivation, and give returns earlier than other 
rubber plants. They could evidently be easily propa- 
gated by means of pieces of the rhizomes, and al- 
though it would be necessary to destroy many of the 
plants to obtain the rubber, there is a probability 
that numerous pieces of the rhizomes could be left 
in the ground to carry on the cultivation. 
The native habitat of these plants is in certain wide 
stretches of country in interior Africa, not covered with 
such luxuriant forests as Sir Henry Stanley, for 
instance, has described on the upper Congo, and under 
a much less humid climate. HerrBaum wrote that the 
"root rubber " district in the Kunene country was 
so devoid of water that the natives going thither 
to work had to carry water with them, returning 
when the supply was exhausted. Herr Schlechter 
states that the plants grow near Stanley Pool on such 
sandy — and therefore unfertile — soil as nowhere exists 
in Kamerun. It would appear, therefore, that these 
plants are adapted to regions not suited to the growth 
of Oastilloa or Hevea specie?, and the planting of 
them thus far In Africa has been done on the same 
estates with the Ceark rubber {Manihot Glaziovii). ' 
* Der Tropenflanzer, IV Jahrg. Pp. 475-480. 
t Cantor Lectures on the Plants Yielding Commei;« 
cial luclia-Rabbsr. London ; 1893. P. 34. 
