YOUNG MAN’S FORESIGHT

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 February 1937, Page 14

YOUNG MAN’S FORESIGHT

HOW EMPIRE OBTAINED RUBBER Sixty years ago a 31-year-old British naturalist and explorer* set out on what has proved to be one of the most momentous missions in thei history of Empire enterprise (writes John Hocken, a retired rubber planter, and recognised authority on the industry, in the Johannesburg Sunday Times). Few in those days had ever- heard the name of H. A. Wickham; those who had only laughed at the wild schemes of this young man from Brazil. But there was one exception. Sir Joseph Hooker, Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kelw, realised at once the golden opportunities presented by Wickham’s scheme to export rubber seeds from the Amazon Valley to India and so give the Empire a chance to grow what was then almost an unknown plantation product.

No one, not even Hooker or Wickham, realised at that time that rubber' would ever become the essential commodity that it is to-day. Not even in their wildest dreams can they have looked forward to the time when rubber' would be consumed at the rate of nearly a million tons a year. That dream was to come later with the boom of 1910 and the birth of the motor car.

But even in the seventies rubber was being increasingly used. Said to have been discovered by Columbus on his second voyage to South America, when he noticed some of the inhabitants playing with a heavy, black ball that bounced, rubber had also attracted the attention of later travellers in l Brazil, who recognised the substance as a vegetable gum and had succeeded in tracing it to a certain genus 1 of tree’s, with long, oval leaves, growing wild in the jungles of the Amazon l Valley. It was not, however, until early in the nineteenth century that the commercial possibilities of the gum first began to be explored. For many years rubber was u’sed solely to erase lead 1 pencil lines, from which its name is derived, and its elastic properties were almost entirely ignored. By the seventies, however, an increasing demand had sprung up. Forty years before, the process of vulcanisation, by which rubber is transformed by the addition of sulphur at a high-temperature into a stronger and better wearing form, had been discovered by an English manufacturer. Moreover, solid tyres for the bicycles then coming into fashion were also increasing the demand for a product at that time almost exclusively supplied by Brazil by tapping the wild trees more or less. indiscriminately. Now, Wickham, besides being aware* of tire increase in demand' for rubber likely to develop, had also experimented with the seeds in Brazil and iiad found that they germinated: easily. He saw no reason why, if suitably packed and rushed to England with the least delay, they should nob germinate’ equally easily in hot-houfees of the right temperature and the degree of humidity to which rubber is l accustomed in its native habitat.

Sir Joseph Hooker, we are justifeid in assuming, was not quite so optimistic. A small packet Of rubber seeds had been brought to him by a Mr Ferris in 1873. The germination had been less than 1 per cent., and even the dozen plants that had been raised successfully did not thrive. However,

in 1875, he got Wickham commissioned by the Government of India to go out to Brazil to see what he could do.

On June 14, 1876, Wickham landed at Liverpool. Hung up on the ship specially chartered to bring him from. 400 miles up the Amazon were a. number of split-cane baskets containing a number of rubber seeds packed between wild banana leaves. They had been collected for Wickham by ’Tapuyo Indians and rushed by canoe down to the ship. In the. disguise of “delicate specimens for Queen Victoria’s garden at Kew,” Wickham’s 1 description of his cargo -to the Brazilian authorities, who were probably suspicious of his secret mission and would certainly have nipped it in the bud if they had known what he was after, they had been successfully smuggled out of South America and now were to be handed over to Hooker. FROM BRAZIL TO KEW. q’he success of the venture now depended on two things. Had the seeds retained their fertility during the 4500-mile journey? Would Hooker be able to secure the conditions required for their germination? At Kew everything possible had been done to receive the seeds. Hothouses of a carefully calculated temperature were ready, and in these the seeds were planted. The feelings of Hooker and Wickham when they saw the first few long stalks that rubber seeds push up through the soil when they germinate are not related, but they must certainly have been tense. Within a fortnight many thousand seedlings had appeared and the’ experiment had been crowned with complete success. Within a few weeks several thousand plants had been packed in Wardian cases, the special type of nearly air-tight, glass-sided cases used since N. Br Ward invented them a century ago for ’’the transportation of growing plants over long distances on sea or land, and sent to Ceylon and the F.M.S.

The Ceylon plants w.ere laid out in a special garden opened by the Government 17 miles from Colombo, where the steamy climate was considered to be almost identical with that of the Amazon tablelands. They thrived there from the! start, and the same applied to the other plants* at Perak, in Malaya. By 1880 cuttings and seeds from these trees were being sent all over-the two territories. Curiously enough, though it was at the expense of the Government of India. that the seeds had been procured, there appears to be* no record of any of the seedlings being sent to India. There is one other aspect of the rubber plantation industry that is often overlooked. Rubber is an essential material in time of war. A shortage of rubber was one of Germany’s most serious difficulties in 1918. The British Empire is fortunate t.o have almost unlimited sources of supply at its command. That is part' of the debt of gratitude we owe to Wickham, Hooker, and the thousands of unknown pioneers of the* rubber plantation indrjstry in the Empire.