The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1889-06-19
THE lNDIA.RueBER TREE.
An Attractive Plant Which Is as Usefu
as It Ii Ornamental

as 1t Is ornamental.
This plant is the fcus elastica OF
botanists, and, although tolerably well
known as greenhouse, window or
decorative plant at the principal rub
Der stores, it has not so very early a
history, having been introduced in Eu-
rope in 1915. 1t is native of the East
midas. The plant belongs to the fig
family, all of which exclude, when
wounded, milky juice with, of course,
fig for fruit this one being about the
size of cherry, and not edible. There
are not less than eighty known species
distributed over a large part of the
tropical world.
The India-rubber tree in its native
fields attains the size of our sycamore,
growing chiefly among decomposed
rocks and vegetable matter over the
declivities of mountains. It grows
very rapidly when young. reaching, it
is said, to the height of twenty-four
feet in four years, and with trunk a
foot in diameter. The well-known
1ndiarrubber is the product of this
tree as found in India, but in South
America there are several trees from
which it is obtained, but the chief
American tree is the Jatropha elastica.
The name, India-rubber, came from
the discovery that the article was USE
full to remove marks of the ordinary
lead pencil, and is mentioned by DR..
Priestly in his work on perspective
printed in ITO, as having just been
brought to his notice. The Indians of
America gave the name cahuchu to the
hardened juice, and from this our
word caoutchouc is derived.
The milk from which the rubber is
made is extracted by making missions
through the bark to the wood, at
the distance OF foot from each other,
all around the trees, and even up to the
top. After one course of tapping, the
tree requires to rest a fortnight, when
the process may be repeated. When
the liquid is exposed to the air it be-
comes a firm and elastic substance,
fifty ounces of pure milky juice yield
ing about fifteen of clear washed gum.
This gum used to be known by the In
dian name of caoutchouc, a veritable
jaw-breaker to the English tongue,
and yet, in our boyhood days, when
this now plentiful rubber was being
introduced into sundry uses, that was
it's common name
For the manifold uses to which it is
now put it is vulcanized. This was
the discovery of Goodyear, that at the
time made his name famous. It is al
SO mixed with another product from
an Indian tree, gutta percha, intro
duced in the arts by DR.. Montgomery
in 1S43. This gum is the exact oppo-
site of rubber it being mon elastic.
The plant has large, glossy leaves,
thick, oval and pointed. 1t is quite an
attractive plant, particularly as a
specimen window plant, without others
near it. 1t stands the dry atmosphere
of a room we'll, and the leaves are
readily rid of all dust by simply spray
ing. Gardeners propagate their stock
from cuttings, which grow readily
enough from single eye and leaf, each
bud thus forming new plant. Young
plants are mt mnch uso1 for. nrono
eating from, but an old plant is gem
orally selected and induced to throw
out as many shoots as possible. In the
olden times propagation was effected
by layering or winding around moss,
or inserting shoot through flower
pot made for the purpose, in which the
roots formed, and afterward severing
from the parent tree Prairie Farmer