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Hokitika Guardian, 21 February 1928, Page 2

(In Saturday night a special broadcast was made from Wellington of an address bv Edison recorded oil a gramophone record. I 'lil'orl unakdy the icon I diil not ionic through at all ilcar. due in the main apparently to I lie lieavi ili< lion of tin- aged spcalior. But from the vigor of his speech it could be realised bow much the old gentleman was in earnest, and how intent he was upon what he was saving. At tlic age of 81. Thomas Alva Edison is still working twelve to fourteen hours a day on his sell-imposed tusk of “finding out all that there is lo know about rubber.” He anil two ;:f his friends, Mr Henry Ford and Mr Harvey Firestone, of motor-tyre fame, have talked this matter over at length and have decided that it is not good for the United States to lie dependent upon foreign supplies of rubber Edison determined long ago to work on this problem of home-grown rubber and he has at his home in Florida “the most complete garden in existence of tropical and sub-tropical M'gelation.” Close by Henry Ford lias 18.(11)1) acres, on which grow rubber I roes of every known sort, many of them ten years old. Edison therefore has all possible facilities fop his rescare'li ready at hand, and lie has made : niisidcrablc progress already. He has proved that the tropical rubber plant cannot he successfully acclimatised in the United States. But he has examined about 2.70 plants, all of widen contain or produce an appreciable amount of rubber, and could he grown and cropped regularly. One of his disappointments was the guayule shrub, which grows in California and is about 10 per cent rubber. But it is too slow in growth and too expensive to handle. At present the veteran scientist is hoping great things from the desert milkweed, which looks like a carpet broom, contains ~> per cent, of ruhtier. and could probably he cropped every year. Last week, according to a cable sent out on his eighty-first birthday, this grand olil. mail of the scientific world was still working on cheerfully and confidently, exacting any day to announce that his researches have put his beloved country beyond the fear of competition or danger in peace or war.