Rubber \ 
T HE programme of the British Cotton Indus- 
try Research Association lays down as 
two possible lines of advance: — 
(1) To attack problems directly by methods 
based on past experience without seeking 
to investigate the fundamental nature of 
the process. 
(2) To try to understand the chemical and 
physical changes produced during manu- 
facture and so to establish gradually 
a broad roadway along which future 
advances may be made. 
If for “ manufacture ” be substituted “ growth ” an 
excellent definition of the aim of the best form of 
scientific research for the improvement of any crop 
is obtained. Unfortunately this fundamental method 
is almost painfully slow and laborious, and the first 
method is bound to be employed at the birth and 
during the youth of any industry. 
Research As it happens, the Para rubber tree is 
and Rubber a plant concerning which it is decidedly 
Growing. dangerous to argue from analogy, 
and even now nothing is known of 
the processes involved in the formation of latex. 
Realising therefore that the present plantation 
practice is the result of dearly-bought experience 
in the laboratory and in the field, the methods by 
which modern scientific research may be expected 
