For many years people only laughed at Wickham’s great idea, but like Goodyear he had faith enough to persevere.  While in Brazil he planted some rubber seeds to see what would happen.  The seeds did grow, and the book which Wickham wrote about his idea and his experiments finally came into the hands of Sir Joseph Hooker, the Director of the Botanical Gardens in Kew, near London.  So interested did he become that he called Wickham’s plan to the attention of the Government of India, and finally Wickham was commissioned to take a cargo of rubber seeds to England, so that his idea might be tried out.

This commission was more difficult than one might think, and all of Wickham’s faith and perseverance were needed to carry it out.  Indeed for a time it seemed hopeless, principally because the seeds so quickly dry up and lose their vitality that they must be planted very soon after being gathered.

But Wickham watched his opportunity, and finally he was able to charter a ship in the name of the Indian Government.  About a third of the way up the Amazon River he placed in her hold several thousand carefully packed seeds of the Hevea Braziliensis, or rubber tree.  Let Wickham, himself, tell how he surmounted the next difficulty: 

“We were bound to call in at the city of Para as the port of entry, in order to obtain clearance papers for the ship before we could go to sea.  Any delay would have rendered my precious freight quite valueless and useless.  But again fortune favored.  I had a ‘friend at court’ in the person of Consul Green, who went himself with me to call on the proper official, and supported me as I presented to His Excellency ’my difficulty and anxiety, being in charge of, and having on board a ship anchored out in the stream, exceedingly delicate botanical specimens, especially designated for delivery to Her Britannic Majesty’s own Royal Garden of Kew.  Even while doing myself the honor of thus calling on His Excellency, I had given orders to the captain of the ship to keep up steam, having ventured to trust His Excellency would see his way clear to furnishing me with immediate dispatch.  An interview most polite, full of mutual compliments in the best Portuguese manner, enabled us to get under way as soon as the captain had got the dinghy hauled aboard.”

Can you imagine Wickham’s sigh of relief as his vessel, with its freight of perishable treasure, steamed out of port, and began the long journey to England?

CHAPTER 5

PLANTATION DEVELOPMENT

The transporting of the rubber seeds from the Brazilian forests to England was only the first step in Wickham’s project.  The real test was still to come.  The seeds were planted in the famous Botanical Gardens of Kew, and on August 12, 1876, the several thousand seedlings which had been raised from them were packed in special cases and shipped to Ceylon on the other side of the globe for the final and most important stage of the experiment.