66 
It is advisable to shift the rubber from time to time in the smoke 
house so that it may be evenly smoked. If not moved or turned 
over a pale line is left where the rubber is in contact with the rattan 
and consequently not smoked, and this spoils its appearance. 
The advantages of this style of smoking house are cheapness of 
erection, economy of smoke, dryness and safety from tire, with com- 
plete efficiency. -Ed. 
SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE. 
Nearly £50,000,000 of British capital has been invested in the 
growing of Indiarubber trees. Many enormous estates are being 
planted with this profitable crop within the British Empire. Thus, 
both Brirish money and British land are being used for the produc- 
tion of the material. The question naturally arises : Can British 
skill and British scientific knowledge take care of these gigantic crops 
and secure them from the attacks of disease ?” 
Unfortunately, the question must be answered in the negative. 
We have within the Empire some of the finest foresters and some of 
the most expert botanists in the world : but the study of vegetable 
physiology and plant diseases is a strangely neglected one. Within 
the last eight months it has been recognised by London financiers, 
that one of the necessities of the time was a supply of first class 
economic botanists; of men skilled in the identification and cure o* 
plant diseases. These new plantations of rubber trees have been 
robbed, so to speak, of the wild habit and brought into a state of 
domestication. They are often being grown in nurseries, and need 
something more than the attention of their natural nurses, the 
planters ; they need doctors who will see to their health, watch fox 
the approach of disease, and cure their troubles before they have 
become serious. There is a certain supply of these plant doctors, 
mycologists and botanical physiologists, forthcoming from Germany 
and Austria, and these have been eagerly sought out and employed. 
In England there is no school where such men are trained. The 
schools of botany in many parts of England are excellent, notably 
the one in Liverpool and one under Professor Farmer in the Roy a 
College of Science at South Kensington. 
When the latter institution was applied to a little while ago by 
certain rubber growers who had offices in the City of London, writes 
the correspondent in question, the reply was given that there were 
plenty of first-class students. “Then let us have as many as yod 
can,” was the request of the City people. Two or three suitable men 
were found worthy to undertake the work, but before they could 
proceed to the plantation it was found necessary that they s on go 
