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product has periods of fluctuation, and there is a larger demand for 
cheap products of this class than lor dear ones. The future history 
of prices has been compared with the past history of cinchona 
and other products, which produces more misconception than any- 
thing else. Cinchona, for instance, is only used practically for one 
purpose, i. e one ailment, consequently its sale depends on that 
ailment, and it can easily be overproduced. Perhaps it is correct 
to sav that rubber has more trade-uses than any other cultivated 
plant. This alone puts it on a safer basis than almost any other 
plant to the cultivator. 
But surely no one expects that in future all rubber we produce 
in any quantity is going to keep up at 5 sj$d. per lb. The amount 
that will we hope "be shortly produced in the Peninsula alone will 
be enormous and who is going to supply the cheap rubber? When 
12 or 13 years ago I was urging the planting of Para rubber by 
planters in the Peninsula, the returns of fully bearing trees were 
estimated at 2 lbs. each per year, and the price of the product at 2 s, 
per lb. It was shown then that on this very low estimate, the cul- 
tivation would pay well. Prices of labour and other things have 
risen since then, but even allowing for all this there does not seem 
to be any fear of a sufficiently bad permanent fall to make the 
cultivation unprofitable. 
Mr. Stephens has shown (Bulletin No. 5, p. 1 71) how very cheap- 
ly and with what simple apparatus the product can be prepared, 
and l have no doubt that when the price falls low we shall have 
found out many ways of reducing the cost of production. 
A somewhat feeble criticism on Mr. CAREY’S account of Mr. 
Stephens’ estate appears in the Colombo Observer , May 27th. 
It is not worth reprinting. The only noticeable points are that the 
author thinks that the farrier’s knife used to make the cuts must 
endanger the tree. From work in the Botanic Gardens we have 
found that as a matter of fact the knife (an ordinary pruning knife 
is used, but I doubt not a farrier’s knife would do as well) is the 
most satisfactory instrument to use, and is in many ways superior 
to at least some of the tapping tools invented. 
The author finishes up wilh suggesting that Mr. STEPHENS 
would do better to take a lesson from certain Ceylon estates and 
put up a properly equipped factory, etc., which is very amusing 
and shows that he has missed the whole point of the article which 
is to show how cheaply rubber of first class quality can be made 
and also like most of the good people of Ceylon that he is utterly 
ignorant of the progress which the planters here have made in the 
cultivation and preparation of rubber or that they are at least as 
well up to date as those of Ceylon. 
Acetic Acid in Rubber . — A note appeared in the Pharmaceutical 
Journal some time ago, in which the author thereof speaking of 
Ceylon rubber stated that that was superior as it was prepared 
without the use of acetic acid, while that of the Straits was inferior 
on that account. As this was reproduced in several Journals, it is 
