January i, 1906.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER ^?VORLD 



117 



RUBBER PLANTING INTERESTS. 



THE BRITISH BORNEO PARA RUBBER CO. 



THIS company was formed last April in Glasgow, Scotland, 

 with ^30,000 [ = $145 995] capital, to acquire from J. 

 Melmore Halliday a concession of land f;ranted by the Brit- 

 ish North Borneo Co. Mr. Halliday has had 17 years' experi- 

 rience as a planter in the Far East and has become manager of 

 the new company. The concession covers 2000 acres, near 

 Beaufort, in Prov.nce Dent, of which 200 had been cleared by 

 September 18, on which date occurred the first planting, from 

 nurseries formed by Mr. Halliday. The two first seedhngswere 

 put in place by the Governor and Mrs. Gueritz, each of whom 

 had been provided with a tastefully decorated spade. Lunch- 

 eon was served to his Excellency's parly in the manager's 

 house, and the hope expressed that the governor would be pres- 

 ent at the first tapping, six years later. The India Rubber 

 Wdri.u of November, (page 48) reported the presence of the 

 Governor and Mrs. Gueritz at the initial tapping of rubber on 

 the Sekong estate, British North Borneo. 



RUBBER PLANTING PROSPECTS IN JAMAICA. 



Mr. Robert Elworthv of Linstead, Jamaica, writes to 

 The Lndia Rubber World that there is much land on that 

 island suitable for rubber culture, but as in Nicaragua planters 

 have hitherto given attention almost exclusively to bananas. 

 They are at last beginning, however, to realize the importance 

 of rubber, and it is probable that the demand this year for seeds 

 and plants will be far greater than can be met by the local de- 

 partment of agriculture. There are a few pioneers in this new 

 culture in Jamaica, and their success so far — some of them have 

 trees nearly old enough to tap - has been the means of encour- 

 aging others to plant. The species grown is Castilloa tlastica, 

 and Mr. Elworthy considers his 5 year old trees to be equal to 

 any of the same age in Mexico.-==The Jamaica public gardens 

 for some time past have been selling rubber seeds and plants 

 to local planters. 



YIELD OF PLANTATION RUBBER. 



To THE Edilor of The India Rubber World : In the 

 month of June I had about 400 cultivated rubber trees (Cas- 

 tilloa elastica) tapped, which yielded about 2 quintals [ = 202.8 

 pounds] of clean rubber, averaging therefore yi pound from 

 each tree. I could have had one pound fronl each tree ex- 

 tracted, but did not want to do so lest the trees might be 

 injured. These trees are from 6 to 7 years old and were origi- 

 nally planted as shade among cacao trees. The rubber thus 

 obtained I sold here in San Jose and was paid the price of 135 

 colones per quintal, equal to about $62.80 United States gold, 

 or 62 cents per pound. Faithfully yours, H. HorPENSTADT. 



San Jose dc Costa Rica, October 6, 1905. 



"CEARA"' RUBBER IN CEYLON. 



Although the Hevea and Ficus species receive by far the 

 greater amount of attention among planters of rubber in Cey- 

 lon, the Ceara tree (Manihot Claziovii) has not been over- 

 looked. At the last shareholders' meeting of The Ceylon Land 

 and Produce Co., Limited, the chairman mentioned the recent 

 planting of Hevea and Castilloa, also stating : "Those of the 

 Ceard trees planted years ago that now remain are flourishing. 

 You will have noted that we handled a few hundred pounds last 

 year at a very handsome price, and we will doubtless collect an 

 increased quality during this season at a lower cost." At the 

 meeting of The Consolidated Estates Co., Limited, it was stated 

 that 131,000 rubber trees had been planted among their tea, 

 several thousand of which were nearly ready for tapping. Most 

 of the land had been planted with Pard, but they were now 



trying Castilloa and Ceara varieties on Warriagalla estate as an 

 experiment. At a recent London auction Manihot rubber from 

 Ceylon sold at 51. \od. [ = $1.42] per pound. 



CEYLON "para" RUBBER IN DRY WEATHER. 

 A CORRESPONDENT of THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD, writing 



from Ceylon under date of October 12, said : 



"The sou'west monsoon was a total failure in Ceylon this 

 year, seriously affecting the rubber estates. The Hevea likes a 

 drought, no doubt of that, and the following rains bring up the 

 latex wonderfully; but the flow and the yield in dry rubber is 

 less in time of drought. But it was youngclearingsthat suffer- 

 ed ; seed at stake plants failed, necessitating replanting and 

 many young stumps or tender basket plants died. Now the 

 rains are on again and planting is going forward briskly. The 

 seed crop this year has been a phenomenal one, and small for- 

 tunes already made out of it— that was due to drought, the seed 

 setting well." 



RUBBER PROM "CAMP PEARSON." 



A RECENT number of The India Rubber World [April i. 

 1905 — page 233] contained an article showing photographs of 

 buildings at Camp Pearson, on the property of the Boston-Pan- 

 ama Co., in Panama. Recently rubber from that camp has be- 

 gun to arrive in the United States, which has sold as high as 

 $1.25 a pound. As this is from wild Castilloa trees, and as the 

 product formerly brought only 80 cents a pound, the difference 

 between the native method of preparing the rubber and the 

 cleanly methods of preparation and coagulation that are now 

 in use is most apparent. The chemical analysis of a sample 

 from a recent lot is as follows : 



Resinous matter 6.0 



Ash 2 



Moisture 28 



Rubber gi.o 



Total 99 o 



* * ♦ 

 Director Emil Spannagel, of the Vereinigte Berlin-Frank- 

 furter Gummiwaaren-Fabriken (Berlin), having followed the 

 course of rubber planting with much interest for a number of 

 years, has taken an interest in a large company which is en- 

 gaged in planting the Kickxia elastica, together with cacao, in 

 Kamerun, the company being the Kautschuk-Pflanzung " Me- 

 anja " Aktiengesellschaft, with offices in Berlin and Victoria. 

 [See The India Rubber World, February i, 1904— page 

 166.] 



DR. ESCH ON "CASTILLOA" RUBBERS. 



TO THE Editor of The India Rubber World : I beg to 

 inform you that, in the translation of my paper on 

 " Caucho and Castilloa Ulei Warburg " [See our issue of No- 

 vember I — page 43]. the term brote must not be rendered 

 " loaves," because the said " brote " like shape is similar to the 

 ordinary Matto Grosso Para ; that is to say, they have the form 

 2ci.vj7t indicated in the 



sketch h e r e- 

 with. Further, 

 I beg to state 

 that Mr. W. 



Villinger, of Antwerp, who has a fleet of steamers in Bolivian 

 and other rubber districts, gave me particulars which indicate 

 that the conclusions in the said paper are for the most part cor- 

 rect. 1 shall endeavor to complete my article by the statements 

 of other explorers. Faithfully yours, dr. werner esch. 



Hamburg, November 19, 1905. 



