3 68 
Having made a study of the material Dr. Sherman declared that 
a good quality was found by him, but the customs officials not be- 
ing judges of Gutta-percha, were forced to accept the valuations 
made by the Chinese, with the result that the exports yield less than 
the proper amount of revenue. The natives, it is asserted are also 
cheated by the traders, both in regard to the quality of their pro- 
duce and in the weights. 
As a result of Dr. SHERMANS’ report, the secretary of the interior 
of the Philippines, Dr. Dean C. Worcester, in whose depart- 
ment the forestry bureau is placed asserts that ff at the present rate 
of destruction there will be no Gutta-percha trees standing four 
years h nee. ” He is inclined therefore in view qj the evident use- 
lessness of the ordinary methods for protection of the trees, to 
recommend the establishment of a Government monopoly of Gutta- 
percha. Exportation, except by the Govern met, could be prohibited, 
and such prohibition could be made fairly effective. Government 
buyers could be located at suitable points. The Government could 
well afford to pay a price considerably higher than that now pre- 
vailing for the Philippine product, thereby avoiding ill feeling on the 
part of the gatherers, and by limiting the amount which it purchased 
could greatly retard the present rapid destruction of the trees. The 
Government buyers would necessarily come into closer contact with 
the collectors, and something might eventually be done in the way 
of introducing proper methods of extraction in place of the present 
destructive processes. At all events the establishment of suitable 
extraction plants would make it possible to utilise the large amount 
of Gutta-percha which is now left in the bark of trees that have 
been felled and ringed. By the way, Dr. Worcester says that a 
method has been worked out in the Government chemical labora- 
tory for the extraction from the Philippine product of a chemically 
pure gutta equal in every way to the best heretofore put upon the 
Singapore market, the purifying process involving the loss of about 
50 per cent, of the mass. 
Dr. Sherman also investigated the number of j-ubber resources. 
No rubber was found in Mindanao, but in the Sulu islands he saw an 
abundance of large rubber vines, or creepers, from which rubber was 
extracting by cutting them so freely that they soon died. Samples 
which he secured he was told at Jolo, would bring at Singapore a 
price equal from 32 to 40 cents., gold, a pound. It appears that 
during 190 1-2, in addition to Gutta-percha, there were exports of 
India-rubber from the Philippines on which duties were paid, 
amounting to 282,996 lbs. 
The India Rubber World August > ' 90 j. 
HORTICULTURAL NOTES. 
Dendrobtum taurinum var album. 
A very pretty form of this plant was presented to the Botanic 
Gardens by Mr. Pereira. The stem bore three spikes of which 
