57 
RUBBER IN JAMAICA A FAILURE. 
The cultivation of any kind of rubber plant known is, according 
to the Director of Agriculture in Jamaica, a failure. He writes in the 
Report of the Work of the Department of Agriculture for 1909 (Sup- 
plement to Jamaica Gazette, September 2, 1909), as follows: 
“ I regret to report that I am unable, after careful study of the 
matter, to recommend the planters in Jamaica to spend money in the 
cultivation of any rubber producing tree yet tested in this island. 
The Para rubber is quite unsuitable. It flourishes in hot, moist 
climate, and on stiff clay soil. Lack of rain for ten days is a serious 
set-back to Hevea braziliensis, where it is grown on modern lines for 
rubber production. 
It is significant that though the department has been distributing 
this tree for the past 25 years, there are no trees of any size to be 
found in the island. The largest is at Castleton Gardens, and this 
tree, although nearly thirty years of age, yields latex with great 
reluctance. The department spent over £500 two years ago in 
importing Para rubber seeds from Singapore, in response to the 
glowing reports from the East 
There is serious reason to believe that this enterprise is doomed 
to failure in Jamaica, and that planters have been ill-advised to spend 
money thereon.” 
Mr. Robert Craig, who kindly sends a copy of this report, does 
not intend, it appears, from his letter, to give up entirely all attempts, 
but sticks to his attempts, experimentally at least, with a thoroughly 
English perseverance. He says that his plants, though they stood 
the long draught wonderfully, have made no wood, many, twenty 
feet high, being no thicker than a fishing-rod. This method of growth 
one has not rarely seen here, but then our trees pick up after that 
and become stouter. 
It would be very interesting to discover exactly what was the 
cause of the failure of this plant in Jamaica. A careful physiological 
and anatomical examination of the trees, and an account of their 
environment, soil, rainfall, temperature, sunshine and general meteo- 
rological conditions, would probably solve the problem as to why 
this plant, which grows so easily under all sorts of conditions here, 
is a failure in the West Indies. Our knowledge of the circumstances 
which in the tropics makes a tree a success or a failure, is at present 
far too scanty. It is one of the subjects which could only be dis- 
covered by a good staff of scientific men in a well-equipped Botanical 
Laboratory, a thing which does not exist in any of the Botanical 
Gardens of the Empire. 
Here “ a stiff clay soil ” which the Director quotes as a factor 
in its success, is by no means a necessity. The tree grows well in 
low-lying swampy soil if drained, and on rocky laterite-hills as well, 
