206 
It will thus be seen that as a matter of history the Botanic 
Gardens of Singapore were just about ten years ahead of Ceylon 
when Mr. Parkin first conceived the plan of making respectable 
looking rubber instead of the messy stuff only known there till 
1899. There is nothing whatever to show however that good 
saleable samples of rubber were made in Ceylon as early as 1899, 
either published or in the correspondence with Ceylon Botanic 
Gardens in our office. 
Though Mr. Parkin was unable to visit the Singapore Gardens, 
he obtained a good deal of information as to our work by correspon- 
dence, as he sent a long list of questions in 1899, on the subject and 
asked me to perform certain experiments for him. Mr. Willis writes 
in answer, April 15, 1899 r 
Mr. Parkin was so busy finishing off his experiments so that 
he had no time to answer your kind letter about rubber in 
Singapore before leaving for England and he asked me to do so. 
We are very much obliged for the information.” Your trees 
\ ield much better than ours, though poorly compared with those 
at Para, and I am inclined to think that Para rubber planting 
will never be a big or lasting industry in the East.” 
It must be remembered that rubber was at that date very low 
m price and that we were all tapping the trees very lightly and with 
much caution not being sure that the plant would stand the amount 
of cutting it gets nowadays. 
Since wiiting the above, a copy of the Tropical Agriculturist 
has come to hand giving Mr. Parkin’s paper in Science Progress in 
full. He modestly does not mention himself by name as the dis- 
coverer of wound-response and the art of making clean rubber but 
gives the credit of the “discovery” to Mr. Willis and his scientific 
assistant. As in Mr. Willis’ various works in the history of Para 
rubber industry no allusion is made at all to the work of the Singa- 
pore Botanic Gardens, In Willis’ “Agriculture in the Tropics ” the 
only allusion to the work done in Singapore is : “ But little interest 
was taken in the trees for about 20 years (i.e. from about 1884) except 
by the heads of the Botanical departments in Ceylon, Java and 
Singapore.” Now all that was done between 1888 and 1896 in Ceylon 
was to tap a single tree once a year. In Java nothing at all appears 
to have been done as the trees in Buitenzorg were too small and 
wretched to offer any prospect of their being ever likely to be worth 
cultivating. About 1894 Dr. Treub and Mr. Wigman, of the Botanic 
Gardens, Buitenzorg, came to visit the Singapore Gardens, and 
wished to see the rubber trees. On the first sight of the younger 
ones Dr. Treub turned to Mr. Wigman and said, “Wigman, did 
you ever see such trees.” “ No,” said Wigman, “ nothing like them.” 
I was surprised but found that the Buitenzorg trees were, though as 
old quite small and not at all encouraging in appearance. Dr. Treub 
took the greatest interest in all economic plants, but evidently up to 
