New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1910-10-05
BOSTON TRYING
RUBBER RAISING.
New Use Planned For Aban.
d0ned New England Farms.
CHINESE TREE EXPERIMENT.

Chinese TREE EXPERIMENT.
Thousand Industries Ready to Pur-
chase Output of New Source of Sup
ply if Successfui-French Scientists
Consider Eucommia Planting Prac
ticable, but Gauis Ignore Hint.
The possibility of raising a rubber
bearing tree of central Asia in the
United States is being tested at the
Arnold arboretum at Boston If the
experiment succeeds botanists who
are watching it say they see no rea-
son why any owner Of rocky hillside
in the eastern part Of the United
States should not set out an orchard
of rubber trees which would grow
with reasonable rapidity and yield
hard, gummy substance which has
caOutchouc as it's base and in charac-
ter appears to stand midway between
the allied commodities of rubber and
gutta percha.
The prospect, they assert, is partic-
ularly pleasing from the point Of view
of possessors of abandoned farms, who
could in no other way make their
| acres so profitable. A thousand and
one industries stand ready to welcome
a new source of crude rubber, and
this, the scientists believe, may be
| found in the seeds and cuttings of
little group Of trees which have al.
ready made a good start in the New
England climate
Found In Cold Region.
OF this Chinese rubber tree, botani-
cally known as Eucommia ulmoides, g
number of good specimens were Sc
cured by E. 7. Wilson. an explorer in
the arboretums Asiatic expedition of
19O7-9.
The examples with which the Arnold
arboretum is experimenting were
found at an altitude of about $500
feet on the slopes of the great noun
tain range against Which the Yangtse-
kiang impinges itself in the neigh
borhood Of Fang, in the province Of
Hapeh. The latitude Of the region
Is about 80 degrees, the climate. and
Typographical conditions not unlike
those Of the mountainous districts of
New York and New England
On its native hillsides the tree grows
to an average height Of about twenty
five feet. According to experience in
China and at the Jardin Colonial. Par
is, it is propagated more readily from
q cuttings than from seeds.
Il The leaves are smaller than those Of
the familiar rubber plant and are
shaped more like those of the elm or
beech, but they have the peculiar gloss
characteristic of trees and shrubs
which secrete caoutchouc
For there is no doubt of the exist
ence of caoutchouc in every part Of
the eucommia except the wood. Al
though rubber has not been made
from it commercially, the fact that it
might be SO made has been we'll estab.
lished by British and French experts.
Product Is Satisfactory.
The product is of a dark brown col
or with metallic reflections on the sur
face. Plunged into hot water, it be
comes soft again, stretches out in
fakes like gold beater's skin and IN
der pressure will take the impress Of
metal. In cooling it loses it's supple
ness and becomes quite hard.
The existence of rubber bearing
tree which grows in temperate eli
mate was first brought to the attention
Of European scientists about 1888 by
DR.. A. Henry, who sent to the Roya
Botanical gardens, Kew, some leaves
flowers and seed pods of a tree which
he had found under cultivation in cen
trai China. He noted that it was sale
to grow wild in the mountainous dis
tricts to the northward
At the arboretum in Boston severa
fair sized saplings of eucommia which
end Of the first summer found then
apparently we'll established They ar
used to cold winters, so there is no ap
!. parent reason why they should no
succeed in eastern Massachusetts a
we'll as scores Of other importation
, from the worlds greatest nursery
Even if they should not get along wei
so near the sea there remains the pos
sibility that they may be adapted t
:. growing on Appalachian mountain
Sides
/ r.s