Science: Goldenrod Rubber

Thomas Alva Edison in a fringed muffler, Mrs. Edison, four servants, a dozen laboratory assistants and five carloads of laboratory gear & raw materials, all rolled southward last week from New Jersey toward Fort Myers, Fla. Through the press rolled headlines. For Inventor Edison, having celebrated the golden jubilee of his electric light bulb, had signalized his annual winter hegira by an announcement that sounded fraught with gold.

Packed in his five carloads of laboratory material were tons of stalks of a common, ubiquitous weed: goldenrod. Goldenrod, announced Inventor Edison, seemed a likely...