Ai'Rii. I, 1907.] 



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Vol. 36. 



APRIL 1. 1907. 



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VISITING RUBBER PLANTERS. 



sight into what ha.s been accomplished by all the others. 

 They are all planting the same species, and, generally, 

 whatever has proved a success on one plantation in 

 .Mexico is lial)le to be found worth while on the others. 

 Not that we would discourage the widest possible study 

 of rubber-planting problems, but it would seem of more 

 practical value to know what is being done in one's own 

 field than by planters of another species, under different libraR' 

 conditions. ^^^ ^q, 



We do not know, by the ua>. liul dial ilie Easternuoj^ 

 planters have yet something to learn about the treatment cai 

 of Hczca rubber. The suggestion made at one time of 

 sending from Ceylon to South America a commission to 

 study rubber conditions there was met by the statement 

 that everything necessary to be known about Para rub- 

 ber could be learned by reading, and the expense of a 

 trip was saved. Tt may yet prove desirable, however, 

 for some of the rubber experts on the other side of the 

 globe to go up the Amazon and study the "native" meth- 

 ods of dealing with the rubber species which they have 

 placed under cultivation. 



HIGHER PRICE LEVEL FOR COTTON. 



No. 1. 



nrHE rubber plantations in the far East are con- 

 stantly being visited by persons from other parts 

 of the world who are interested, cr thinking of becoming 

 interested, in the rubber culture in some other region. It 

 is natural that the successful production of rubber in 

 British Asia should suggest to planters elsewhere who 

 may have taken up rubber later, the desirability of study- 

 ing the practice there. And most commendable has been 

 the spirit manifested by planters in Ceylon and Malaya 

 in putting at the disposal of their visitors all the infor- 

 mation desired. The Eastern planters have reached their 

 present stage of advancement, not by having any secrets 

 in practice, but through the liberal interchange of ex- 

 perience and views — a policy which wc hope to see 

 adopted generally. 



We notice that, among others, the visitors referred to 

 have included a number interested in planting rubber in 

 Mexico. Some of these are likely to be disappointed, 

 since the Hevca, the rubber tree planted in Ceylon, is 

 very different from the Castilloa. planted in Mexico, 

 calling for difl'ereiit treatment throughout, and yielding 

 rubber of a different (|ualily. \\'liat wc sliDuld rather 

 like to see would be an excliange of visits among the 

 planters in ]\Iexico, with a view to each gaining an in- 



■"nili-'RE is no question to-day of more general in- 

 terest to the india-rubber industry than the course 

 of prices of raw cotton. As we have pointed out re- 

 cently, the industry has been obliged of late years to 

 accustom itself to a new and hifrher standard of prices 

 for raw rubber, and no one will be found now calculat- 

 ing upon the probability, at least for a long time, of 

 rubber prices sinking to the level of ten years ago — 83 

 cents for material now quoted at about $1.20 per pound. 

 The industry at present is confronted with the question 

 whether a similar permanent advance is not to be ex- 

 perienced in respect of cotton. 



The situation is so well outlined in a circular to the 

 trade issued li.\' Mr. Theodore H. Price, an important 

 member of the cotton trade in Xew York, that we shall 

 take the liberty of quoting from it : "The .American cot- 

 ton crop for the season ending .August 31. 1906, was 

 7. 147.000 bales, and was marketed at an average of about 

 7y> cents per ])ound. In the interval since, the produc- 

 tion has nearly doubled, and we have about completed 

 the sale of a crop of between 13 and 14 million bales, at 

 an average of probably IOJ/2 cents per pound. An in- 

 crease of nearly 100 per cent, in the supply and a co- 

 incident advance of 30 or 40 per cent, in the ])rice is an 

 economic parado.x which justifies the closest scrutiny of 

 the conditions which have made it possible." 



Ii is no longer possible to forecast the price of cotton 

 by com|)aring the prospective yield of a growing crop 

 with last year's production, and assuming that a larger 

 out[)ut will mean lower prices as a matter of course. 

 Xor do the various causes which formerly influenced, 

 temporarily, a rise in prices suffice to account for the 



