Feb.  I,  1897.] 
THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
531 
ficit  shown  in  the  earlier  years  between  the  revenue 
and  expenditure,  amounting  to  £62,000  in  the  first 
ear,  was  gradually  diminished  until  in  1895  the 
alance  was  for  the  first  time  on  the  right  side. 
The  amount  of  that  credit  balance  was  more  tlian 
doubled  in  the  first  hall  of  the  current  year,  and 
if  their  surplus  continued  to  increase  from  year 
to  year  as  rapidly  as  the  deficits  were  reduced 
they  would  not  have  much  to  complain  of  in  an- 
other ten  years.  The  volume  of  trade  in  the  country 
was  what  they  had  to  look  to  in  order  to  find  out 
their  real  position  and  prospects,  and  w'ith  this  they 
had  cause  for  satisfaction.  In  1895  the  imports  w’ere 
1.663.000  dols  and  the  exports  2,130,000  dols,  while  for 
the  first  six  months  of  1896  the  imports  were 
898.000  dols  and  the  exports  1,850,000  dols,  which  was 
a very  large  increase.  He  believed  they  had  now 
not  only  turned  the  corner,  but  had  made  good  pro- 
gress in  the  right  direction. 
A Suggestion  to  West  Indian  Tlanters.— Mr. 
Thos.  T.  P.  Bruce  Warren,  of  the  Indiarubber, 
Guttapercha,  and  Telegraph  Company,  Silvertown, 
suggests  that  the  West  Indian  planters  should 
cultivate  Indiarubber,  He  says  ; “ I have  no  hesita- 
tion in  saying  that  the  West  India  Islands  are  well 
situated,  geographically,  for  the  cultivation  of  india- 
rubber  of  good  quality,  and,  looking  at  the  fact  that 
our  supply  is  diminishing,  I think  that  our  Govern- 
ment may  assist  the  West  India  planter  with  seeds 
or  saplings  of  different  varieties  or  species,  to  find  out 
what  plant  will  be  best  suited  for  the  soil  and  climatic 
conditions,  and,  what  is  of  equal  importance,  what 
plants  can  be  depended  on  to  yield  a profitable 
product  as  soon  after  planting  as  possible.  Arbore- 
scent plants,  as  a rule,  yield  better  qualities  of 
rubber,  but,  of  course,  must  stand  a few  years  before 
being  tapped;  vines  and  creepers  reach  maturity 
sooner  for  yielding,  and,  although  the  quality  is 
inferior,  it  is  far  more  encouraging  to  a planter  to 
obtain  a commercial  status  for  his  product  than  to 
place  the  whole  of  his  venture  on  more  ambitious 
hopes.  It  is  not  unreasonable  to  try  plantations  of 
plants  yielding  indiarubber  quite  equal  in  quality  to 
what  we  get  from  Central  America,  or  even  Brazil. 
An  inspection  of  the  map  will  show  that  they  are  in 
the  same  physical  zone,  and,  being  so  near  to  the 
American  coasts,  there  is  a fair  prospect  of  success ; 
but,  of  course,  a few  years  will  be  required  before  a 
tree  can  be  freely  tapped.” 
INDIARUBBER  IN  AFRICA. 
THE  LANDOLPHI.\  VINE  AND  THE  LAGOS-BUBBEB  TBEE. 
Sib, — I have  read,  as  I am  sure  many  West-Coasters 
will  have  read,  with  great  interest  your  article  in 
the  Spectatoi-  of  November  14th  on  india-Rubber,  and 
I should  much  like  to  ask  the  learned  writer  thereof 
if  something  might  not  be  done  to  reinstate  the 
rubber-vines  in  those  West  African  districts  wheie 
the  wasteful  way  in  which  the  natives  have  collected 
it  has  stamped  the  trade  out,  and  whether  this  re- 
instating might  not  be  effected  by  the  judicious 
felling  of  timber  at  a slight  expense,  because,  if  done 
judiciously,  the  timber  felled  would  be  of  value  and 
help  to  pay  expenses.  From  what  I have  seen  of 
the  rich  rubber  districts  of  Western  Africa  stamping- 
out  of  rubber  in  a district  arises  primarily  from 
the  native  pulling  down  every  rubber-vine  he  sees 
and  cutting  it  up  into  small  pieces  with  a view  to 
putting  those  pieces  round  a fire  and  running  the 
rubber  into  a calabash  ; or,  when  the  vines  are  too 
strong  for  him  to  do  this,  making  murderous  wounds 
on  them  with  his  machete ; secondarily,  it  arises  from 
the  very  trying  habits  of  the  Landolphia  in  insisting 
on  starting  life  from  a seed — it  will  not  send  out 
side  branches  if  its  top  is  cut  off,  and  it  will  not 
send  up  shoots  from  its  roots.  Now  in  dense  African 
forests  the  chances  of  seeds  are  few  and  far  between. 
They  fall  upon  the  ground  150  ft.  or  200  ft.  below 
the  region  whereon  the  sunshine  and  the  rain  plays. 
You  may  go  for  months  through  the  great  Forest 
Jlelt  of  Africa  in  a grim  twilight  gloom,  seeing 
nothing  day  out  and  day  in  but  countless  thousands 
of  bare  grey  tree-stems  festooned  with  great  bush- 
ropes  twined  and  twisted  round  each  other  and  round 
the  tree-columns,  as  bare  of  foliage  as  a ship’s  wire 
rigging,  and  looking  like  some  Homeric  battle  of 
serpents  arrested  at  its  height  by  a magic  spell.  If 
your  way  takes  you  on  to  a mountain-top  and  you 
look  down  on  the  country  you  have  traversed  you 
can  hardly  recognise  it  in  the  wild,  luxuriant  mass 
of  beauty,  redolent  in  colour  and  perfume,  that 
stretches  before  you,  the  top  of  the  forest;  but  if 
you  keep  on  the  level  ground  you  will  come  now  and 
again  to  an  oasis  of  new  life  where  one  of  the  forest 
giants  having  grown  above  his  fellows  and  so  given 
the  tornado  a grip  on  him,  has  been  destroyed.  He 
has  been  cast  by  the  tornado  wind  a wreck  to  rot, 
or  turned  in  a second  from  a glorious  living  thing 
into  a seared  skeleton  by  the  tornado’s  lightnings. 
If  you  will  carefully  examine  such  an  oasis  of  new 
life,  caused  by  the  sunlight  and  rain  reaching  the 
ground  instead  of  the  top  of  the  forest,  you  will 
see  thousands  of  young  plants  coming  up,  and 
among  the  medley  you  will,  I think  I may  say, 
always  see  young  rubber-vines.  A very  few 
of  these  vines  will  ultimately  survive;  only  those,  in 
fact,  which  by  their  wonderful  hook-tackle  arrange- 
ments have  gripped  on  to  the  two  or  three  sap- 
lings of  great  forest  trees  which  are  destined  to 
W'in  in  the  race  for  life  with  their  neighbours,  and 
take  the  place  of  the  great  fallen  monarch  tree 
and  those  round  him  which  have  been  wrecked  by 
his  fall.  Of  course,  to  carry  out  clearings  in  West 
African  forests  means  the  institution  of  a Forestry 
Deiiartment  like  that  of  India,  and  this  for  trade 
purposes  is  not  immediately  required  ; for  the 
quantity  of  rubber  in  West  Africa  is  enormous. 
The  Kicksia,  the  Lagos  rubber-tree  that  has  been 
brought  so  profitably  forward  by  Sir  Alfred  Maloney 
and  Sir  Gilbert  Carter  of  Lagos,  is  by  no  means 
confined  to  Lagos.  It  grows  in  great  luxuriance  all 
along  the  South-West  Coast;  but  at  present  the 
African  does  not  know  it  is  a rubber-tree  down 
there,  and  confines  his  attention  to  the  vines,  to  Lan- 
dolphia Owariensis,  from  which  he  gets  the  high 
quality  rubber ; to  Landolphia  florida,  from  which 
ire  gets  flake  rubber  ; and  to  five  other  bush-ropes, 
from  which  he  gets  a sap  which  is  not  true  rubber 
at  all,  but  which  he  uses,  with  many  other  things, 
to  adulterate  his  rubber  with,  to  the  end  of  mak- 
ing it  heavier,  because  it  is  bought  of  him  by  weight, 
and  it  is  his  nature  to  adulterate  everything  that  pas- 
ses through  his  hands.  A Forestry  Department  is,  how- 
ever, a great  need  in  those  portions  of  the  West 
African  Coast  that  fringe  the  Western  Soudan,  like  the 
Gold,  Ivory,  and  Slave  Coasts.  The  forests  here  are  only 
fringing  forests  between  the  Sea  of  Sand,  the  Sahara, 
and  the  Salt  Sea,  or  the  Bight  of  Benn,  and  are  in 
danger  of  being  destroyed  by  the  native,  in  his  ter- 
ribly destructive  way  of  making  his  farm, — clearing  a 
patch  of  bush,  cultivating  it  for  a season,  then  letting 
it  go  into  a worthless  jungle  ; and  clearing  another 
patch.  Such  disforested  regions  you  will  find  round 
Accra  and  the  Elmina  Plain  ; and  in  those  regions  of 
this  disforested  land  most  remote  from  the  Forest  it  is 
almost  impossible  now  for  the  native  to  make  a plan- 
tation whose  yield  is  sufficient  for  his  needs,  because 
the  destruction  of  the  forests  diminishes  the  rainfall, — 
for  example,  the  rainfall  at  Accra  is  about  45  inches  per 
annum,  and  this  is  not  sufficient  to  support  a luxurious 
food-producing  vegetation  in  a tropical  district  sub- 
jected to  a long  dry  season  and  the  intensely  drying 
action  of  the  wind  from  the  Sahara,  and  if  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  forests  is  allowed  to  go  on  at  its  present 
rate  for  a few  more  years,  we  shall  find  ourselves  facing 
famine  in  West  Africa.  The  South-West  Coast,  which 
commences  at  Cameroon,  is  under  different  climatic 
conditions.  Cameroons,  with  its  volcanic  island  series 
of  Fernando  Po,  San  Thome,  and  Principe,  has  an  in- 
finitely richer  soil  and  heavy  and  evenly-distributed 
rainfall  ; below  Cameroons  you  are  in  the  region  of 
double  seasons,  two  wet  and  two  dry,  until  you  reach 
Congo  ; and  in  this  double-season  region  the  growth 
of  vegetation  is  so  rapid  that  the  native  has  to  fight 
back  the  forest  as  a Dutchman  fights  the  sea,  and 
