30 
REPORT ON THE CAOUTCHOUC OP COMMERCE. 
PART II. 
THE CULTIVATION AND ACCLIMATION OE TREES 
YIELDING CAOUTCHOUC. 
The use of Caoutchouc or India Rubber is no longer restricted to 
the rubbing out of pencil marks, as the latter name implies, but has 
now really become a necessity in the industries. Its applications 
are indeed legion, and still more numerous would they be, if larger 
quantities of good quality and at lower prices could be supplied. 
The cultivation of economic plants and the acclimation in 
localities where the various conditions, which are so many elements 
of success, are more controllable than in then* native habitat, has a 
very important bearing on the commerce of a country, and becomes 
the more necessary for the sustentation and improvement of trade 
and manufactures, as the march of civilization and colonization 
or the recklessness of native collectors reduce the area and number 
of spontaneous forest products. It may' be taken as an axiom 
beyond all controversion, that we cannot long rely on the 
spontaneous products of the forests, and that recourse must be had, 
sooner or later, to. conservation, cultivation, and acclimation, in 
order to keep up necessary supplies of all necessary vegetable 
products. In illustration of this I may be permitted to quote from 
a lecture # delivered by me on this subject, some remarks on the 
collection of India-rubber, which will serve very well to convey a 
general idea of how forest products are collected, and also to 
illustrate a few points to which I wish to draw attention: — ■ 
“ To those who are unacquainted with the forests of intertropical 
<e America, the obstacles there met with are incomprehensible. 
“ The traveller finds an inextricable confusion of vegetation, 
“ covered with creepers, through which a day’s hard labour will 
“ not secure the advance of a hundred feet. Now, a straggling 
ee and slimy marsh, out of winch he is only with difficulty able to 
ee extricate himself; next, an insurmountable ravine, which it is 
“ necessary to flank, thus tripling the amount of labour. Add 
ee to these, the perpetual fear of wild beasts, and the frequent want 
ec of water, and then judge of what passes in the mind of the poor 
* ■“ On the Study of Economic Botany ; and its claims, educationally and com- 
mercially considered.” Jour. Soc. Arts, February 16th, 1872, 
