RUBBER FROM MILKWEED

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 30, 4 August 1923, Page 14

RUBBER FROM MILKWEED

INVWIGATrONS' IN PROGRESS:

Rubber plantations in the United States may be a realisation in the not far distance if the recent prediction of Henry Ford that the common' milkweed could produce rubber iv satisfactory quantities, is fulfilled, states the "Christian Science Monitor." Nor is milkweed rubber an invention of Ford, but in many of the laboratories of this country, investigations have been in progress for several years as to the possibilities of the milky juice of plants of the temperate zone as a source of rubber.

Among investigations along this line are those of Dr. Carl D. Laßue, of thtj botany department of the University of Michigan, who believes that at some time the extraction of rubber from milkweed will be a reality. According to him, the' experiments "which have come under his observation, have shown a production from the milkweed of only 1£ per cent. A yield of'at least 6 per cent, is believed "necessary before the milkweed can be said to be productive, the latex of the best rubber plants of the tropics furnishing from 20 to 50 per, cent. Certain varieties of milkweed have been found which sKow a fairly high yield, but these varieties are slow growing and therefore not highly desirable for the purpose. When a fast-growing productive type of milkweed is found which will adapt itself to harvesting under methods similar to those in the recent cultivated plantations of the tropics, the goal of the present investigations will have been achieved.

This includes, chiefly, that the vines or trees, or, in the tentative field, the plants, being tapped, under definite regulations, replanting plants that may be destroyed by careless tapping, and the. establishing of the type of milkweed best suited- to the locality.