June i, 1907. | 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



265 



Published on the 1st of each Month by 



THE INDIA RUBBER PUBLISHING GO. 



No. 35 WEST 21st STREET, NEW YORK. 



CAIU.F. Mtniir.SK: IKWOIiLI), \/iU' YORK. 



HENRY C. PEARSON, 

 EniTOB, 



HAWTHORNE HILL, 

 ASSOCIATE, 



Vol, 36. 



JUNE I. 1907. 



No 3. 



SuHSCHii-TioNs : $;i.00 [)oi- jpiir, .fl.".') for six nionllis, postpaid, toi- the 

 t"nlt('<l SIntes iiml (icpi'iulencles nn<l Mexico. To the Dnmiulon 

 of Cnnadii and .Til othei' countiies, ,$:{.. "lO (oi' equivalent funds) 

 per ,vear. postpaid. 



AnvKnTisiNi;: liatrs will be made known on application. 



Rkmitt.\ncks : Should always lie made by bank draft, PostolBco or Ex- 

 press money orders on New York, payable to The India Kibher 

 I»uni,isniNG COMPASV. Remittances for foreign subscriptions 

 should be sent by International Postal order, payable as above. 



Disio.NTiNiJANCES : Yearly orders for subscriptions and advertising are 

 iBEardcd as permanent, and after the first twelve months they 

 will he discontinued onlv at the request of the subscrilier or ad- 

 vertiser. Bills are rend'enil prnmntly at the beginning of each 

 period, and thereby our patrons have due notice of continuance. 



in this way could rubber be produced at a cost of 

 17 cents a pound or less, of a quality salable as high 

 IS ,$1.30 or $1.40 a pound. 



.\iid in view of the newness of the Ceylon rubber 

 interest it is not unreasonable to expect that further 

 improvements in the direction of economical priDduc- 

 tion are yet to be recorded, .Ml of which is of interest as 

 relating to the Far East alone, but may not som- 

 the new ideas prove applicable to rubber in geiicral? 

 Here we see the Amazon valley, for example, dis- 

 charging this year probably 80 pounds of rubber for 

 every pound of plantation rubber from jlritish .\sia. 

 It is true that the .\mazon output, for the most part, 

 is smoked in preparation, while the other is not ; but 

 if the smoking is essential — and thus far it seems to 

 he — why may not processes and apparatus be devised 

 for smoking rubber in bulk instead of by piecemeal, 

 as now practiced on the Amazon ? 



We do not doubt that some such practice .vill be 

 evolved and will become general wherever Hez'ea rub- 

 ber is produced, whether in forests or on plantations. 



COPYRIGUT, 1907, BY 

 THE IXDIA RUBBER PUBLISniyG CO. 



Entered at New York postoffice as mail matter of the second class. 



lABLE OF CONTENTS ON LAST PAGE READING MATTER. 

 CURING RUBBER IN BULK. 



I 



WITHOUT doubt a notable step in economy in 

 the production of raw rubber in the Far East 

 has been taken in the last year or two, particularly on 

 the larger plantations. The coagulation of rubber in 

 ordinary dinner plates was all well enough in the days 

 when only a few pounds were to be dealt with, and 

 the object was, first, to determine whether the planted 

 trees would yield rubber, and, secondly, to find out 

 how the product would be received by the manufac- 

 turers. 



Rut the.sc questions having been settled satisfac- 

 torily, and the rubber production of Ceylon and ^la- 

 laya having reached a million pounds a year, with the 

 prospect of a constant and rapid increase, the former 

 laboratory scale of operations has become inadequate. 

 'I'he estate manager with a few hundred pounds in a 

 season to deal with might have treated the rubber in 

 his dining room, had he cai-ed to do so,- Handling a 

 thousand pounds a day, and more, as some of them will 

 be doing soon, is an entirely different proposition. 

 Much cheaper methods than handling latex by the 

 saucerful become necessary, since the first object of 

 the rubber plantation is returns for the shareholders 

 from the proceeds of rubber sales. It is interesting to 

 note in how many ways economical methods have been 

 evolved for handling Ceylon rubber on a comparatively 

 large scale — for treating it in hulk, so to speak. Only 



THE VALUE OF A RUBBER TREE. 



IT is natural that the British investors who have jnit 

 so many millions into the new business of planting 

 niliher should feel an interest in all the details of what 

 there is to show for their money, and the directors of the 

 rubber companies, in ])reparing their annual rei^rts, 

 show evidence of a desire to satisfy a laudable curiosity. 

 Hence we find generally in these reports a definite state- 

 ment of the number of rubber trees planted, if not an 

 exact census of the trees actually standing at the date of 

 the report, with the ages stated. These figures, in the 

 aggregate, seem large, but the mere existence of trees 

 is not conclusive evidence of wealth. On many of the 

 newer plantations, of course, they are merely the basis 

 of hopes. 



15ut this year the tree censuses are much more inter- 

 esting than statistical tables generally are, for the reason 

 that in a number of the reports, side by side with the 

 number of trees, is mentioned the amount of rubber pro- 

 duced, followed by a statement of profits, and the details 

 of dividends. When, for instance, it is shown that 11,- 

 348 trees, averaging less than seven years, yield 32,693 

 pounds of rubber — an average of nearly 3 pounds per 

 tree— which sells at an average of S1.21>^, after deduct- 

 ing the selling expenses, the study of the value of a tree 

 as an asset becomes of interest. In this case the divi- 

 dend disbursed (less than the total net earnings) works 

 out at S2.37 per tree. Capitalized on an 8 per cent, basis, 

 this gives the trees a value of $30 each, or between 

 $3,000 and ?6.000 per acre of trees, according to the 

 closeness of planting. The same rule applied to another 

 company, which paid $91,888 in dividends, based on 

 the output from 81,500 trees, would give an average 

 result of SI. 13 per tree, and fix its value at $16.62. 



