1 Dec., 1897.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 487 
These handsome plants form such a beautiful feature of our Queensland 
gardens during the autumn and summer months, that it would be a thousand 
pities to risk importation which might result in their total annihilation, and we 
trust that the warning coming from such an eminently reliable source will deter 
any intending importers from doing so without exercising the most extreme 
caution. 
MAIZE STALKS. 
Maizu-crowers, says the Colombo Agricultural Magazine, will be interested 
to learn that at length a discovery has been made that may turn out of inealeu- 
lable value to growers of the crop. A well-known shipbuilder in Philadelphia 
(Mr. Cramp) has announced that a chemist, under his patronage, has discovered 
that, through a certain process, the stalks of maize will furnish material for a 
large variety of articles, notably paper, matting, smokeless powder, sugar, &c. 
Hitherto, maize stalks have been of little or no value, except, of course, when a 
crop has been grown for green food. By this discovery, however, it is alleged 
that the stalks will be worth at least £1 peracre. In fact, the enormous area 
of land in America devoted to maize will make this by-product—the stalks— 
more valuable than cotton-seed, at one time such a nuisance, but now of 
immense value every year. 
RUBBER-TREE GROWING. 
Tue Sydney Stock and Station Journal says :— 
A few days ago the Department of Agriculture announced that seeds of 
rubber-trees woulda be obtained from Kew Gardens, England, and a trial of 
them would be made at the Experimental Farms in New South Wales Just 
prior to that Mr. Campbell, one of the chiefs of the Department, ventured the 
opinion that rubber-trees were not eminently suited for the New South Wales 
climate; other experts think differently, so trials are to be made at the 
Government farms. But let us ask why seeds are to be obtained, and why 
not trees ; also why are they to come from England instead of the countries 
nearer to our shores, and to which the trees are indigenous? We ask this 
because we think that, if experiments are needed, they should. be of advantage 
to producers in this, as well as the succeeding, generation. Boomful as rubber 
is to-day, and secure as it seems in the future as a good payable crop to go for,. 
times, manners, and customs change; and rubber may, by the time the seeds 
arrive, get into the ground, the trees mature, the rubber juice exudes, and the 
Government report printed, be a great drug on the market, and nobody the 
better for the expense, the experiments, and the information gained. 
Anyhow, why not go about the matter in the speediest way ?. As an 
example, two or three enterprising New South Welshmen have leased a four- 
square mile island in the Fly River, New Guinea, where the rubber-tree at 
present grows indigenously, and which they intend to stock right out for rubber. 
Do you think it would pay them to send to Kew for seeds? Not a bit of it! 
They send to Java and Ceylon for young trees—trees that will yield 3 1b. of 
rubber juice in two years. ‘That’s business, and there’s money in it. 
Not many months ago a rubber trader came down from New Guinea in 
the s.s. Titus ”’ with two tons of rubber. It cost him £200 to land in Sydney. 
When here he disposed of it at 3s. per lb.—that is, £336 per ton. The Ply 
River Island Syndicate brought specimens of rubber from their trees, and were 
offered £200 a ton as per sample, two or three months ahead, no matter what 
the then state of the market. Buyers who talk like that don’t do anything 
rash. They know what they are about, and growers who order trees, instead 
of seeds, want to get some results from their labours before the erack of doom, 
which means that if our people are to get ahead with rubber-tree growing they'll 
have to experiment themselves, or they’ll get left. 
