With that clue, he reinvented vulcanized rubber in 1843, four years after Goodyear. By the time Goodyear applied for an English patent he found that Hancock had filed a few weeks earlier. Goodyear installed great pavilions built entirely of rubber, floor to roof. Eventually, however, accumulated royalties made his family comfortable. Goodyear's only direct descendant among modern companies is United States Rubber, which years ago absorbed a small company he once served as director.
Today there is a cultivated rubber tree for every two human beings on earth.
The United States alone imports almost half of it, and synthesizes as much or more from petroleum. The whole huge apparatus owes its existence to the invincible little fanatic who might have died a bitter man, but didn't. I am not disposed to complain that I have planted and others have gathered the fruits. A man has cause for regret only when he sows and no one reaps. This reprint does not constitute an endorsement, implied or otherwise, by Reader's Digest.