A! report in our commercial} columns to-day gives details of new experiments which are being ma: in the cultivation of rubber in the Philippines, and this seems to be suitable' opportunity to recount certain past history with reference to rubber there. "Companies have been floated in former years for!
purpose of working estates in the Islands, and while certain them have gone into liquidation, the others engaged inthe rubber growing industry produce comparatively so little that it has no effect on 'A former resident of and who knows the Malay States as well gives an interesting theory to account for this failure. To get a rubber tree at its best from the point of view of yield, it is necessary to grow it in climate free from violent storms} and which is also moist, for the tree absorbs as much in the way of atmospheric moisture as it does! through its roots. Hence a climate such as Malaya where there is rain practically all the year round is ideal. Now in the northern Phil ippines, where the present experiment is taking place, there are two separate seasons, dry and wet, practically of six months each, all depending on the monsoon. Rubber planted there made a good growth and looked well, but when it came to tapping there was no reasonable flow of latex, in, fact hardly any all. The tree had developed different properties as compared with what it has in Malaya, and hence the failure of the enterprises started in the northern part of the islands. Going farther south the} district of Leyte is the very centre of the typhoon belt, and while the climate is otherwise suitable, -the typhoons there do 2o much damage by. tearing off branches and the ike, and the trees take 20 long tol recover from such injury, that it has not been found possible to make a commercial success of it there.' Mindanao, the southernmost, of the islands, has all the qualities except ong suitable for the cultiva. tion of rubber, and the one missing} is Labour. The Moros, or whoever} the natives of that part are, do not} go in for hard work and resent strangers coming to their haunts! for the purposes of work. Every] now and again somebody or sorns party is massacred there, and accordingly it has been impossible to persuade labour to go to Mindanao in any force. It is true that some estates have been established; and these produce the Philippines" contribution to the world's stocks. is, however, small in quantity, and the outlook' for any substantial increase within the next few re does not seem especially hopeful.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.