pods containing three speckled seeds which look like smooth,
slightly flattened nutmegs. When the seeds are ready to drop the
outer covering of the pod bursts with a loud report, the seeds
shooting in all directions.

This is Nature's clever scheme to spread the Hevea family. The
tree grows wild in the hot, damp forests of the Amazon valley and
in other parts of South America that have a similar climate. The
ideal climate for the rubber tree is one which is uniform all the
year round, from eighty-nine to ninety-four degrees at noon, and
riot lower than seventy degrees at night. The Amazon country has a
rainy season which lasts half the year, though the other season is
by no means a dry one, and so for half the time the jungles are
flooded.

These rubber storehouses had been growing for thousands of years
in the Amazon jungle with their wealth securely sealed up in their
bark, the peck of a bird, the boring of a beetle, or the scratch
of a climbing animal being the only draft upon their treasure. The
trees around the mouth of the river supplied whatever was needed
for the little manufacturing that was at first done. But the
discovery that made a universal use for rubber changed all this.
Brazil was surprised to find what great treasure her forests
contained. Large rubber areas were found a thousand miles up the
river and she began in a serious way to develop a large crude
rubber business.

Less than twenty years ago Brazil produced practically all the
rubber used in the world. But to-day she furnishes less than one-
tenth of the world's supply. How Brazil, possessing in her vast