The hero of the romantic story of that earliest experiment is Mr. H. A. Wickham. After long and careful study of Wild Rubber-trees in the Brazilian forests, Mr. Wickham came to the conclusion that it would be possible to cultivate these valuable trees, and that the Eastern Tropics would prove particularly suitable as a home for their adoption. Experienced agriculturists and everyone connected with the rubber business looked upon these ideas as the wild dreams of a man who had more imagination than sense. Nothing daunted, Mr. Wickham determined that at least he would put to the test his theory that rubber seeds sown by man would grow quite as well as seeds scattered by the trees themselves, provided they were reared in suitable soil and in a similar climate to that of their forest home. He began to plant seeds of the Hevea tree in Brazil, turning into a nursery for them a piece of ground near to where he was living at the time. Little did he think then that the day was not far distant when he would be given an opportunity of putting his theory to the test on a very much bigger scale, and in the East, too. In 1871 this energetic pioneer had published a book entitled “Rough Notes of a Journey through the Wilderness,” wherein were included drawings, made by himself, of the leaf, seed-pod, and seed of the _Hevea brasiliensis_. These drawings came under the notice of Sir Joseph Hooker, who was then Director of Kew Gardens, and attracted his attention to the subject of rubber cultivation. Sir Joseph soon became keenly interested in Mr. Wickham’s ideas. Not only did he favour the theory that rubber-trees could be cultivated, but he fully agreed that the Eastern Tropics would make a capital experimental nursery for them, and thought that the East ought not to neglect so promising a possibility of agricultural development. He managed to win for the cause of rubber cultivation its third supporter, Sir Clements Markham of the India Office. Sir Clements, in his turn, did his best to interest his colleagues in the proposed new branch of agriculture, with the result that in 1876 the Indian Government agreed to find the money for the introduction into India of “the tree which produced the true 'Para’ rubber of commerce.”