186 



THE INDIA RUBBER ^//OR]LD 



[March i, 1906. 



A GERMAN RUBBER MANUFACTURER. 



by all of his contemporaries in Germany and indeed he has 

 friends all over the world 



THE manager of the Vereinigte Berlin-Frankfurter Gum- 

 miwaren-Fabriken (in Berlin), Mr. Emil Spannagel, 

 was bom in Barmen, Rhenish Prussia, in 1863. At the age 

 of 17, having finished school, he was sent by his father to 

 America, partly to learn English and also to get a grasp of 

 American methods in business. He obtained a position in 

 the well known New York importing house of Spielman & 

 Co., and after staying with them for two years, under the ex- 

 cellent training of 

 the head of the 

 firm, returned to 

 Berlin to fulfil his 

 military duty as 

 volunteer of the 

 Imperial Guard 

 Kurassier regi- 

 ment. At the 

 end of his mili- 

 tary- service he 

 came again to 

 America and 

 spent two years 

 as a traveling 

 salesman for 

 Spielman & Co. 

 and is very proud 

 of the fact that 

 when he made his 

 first attempt to 

 EMIL SPANNAQEL. Sell goods in the 



city of Portland, Maine, he booked six orders the first day. 

 His experience as a commercial traveler, which was largely 

 inand among New England business men, he regards as a 

 special element in the foundation of his career. At the end 

 of these two years military duties again called him to Ber- 

 lin. Then, being much interested in modern languages, and 

 finding great delight in traveling, he took a position with a 

 large house manufacturing surgical goods in Kassel, with 

 the whole of Europe for his territory. He traveled from the 

 south coast of Sicily up into frozen Spitsbergen, going to 

 within a few degrees of Nansen's record point. It was while 

 in Spitsbergen, on board the Augusta Victoria, that he 

 found the best comrade of his life, his wife, a lady from the 

 old city of Bremen. 



Mr. Spannagel was appointed manager of the Vereinigte 

 Berlin-Frankfurter Gummiwaren-Fabriken in Berlin at the 

 age of 30 and has now filled that position most acceptably 

 for 12 years. He takes a vital interest not only in the varied 

 line of goods that they manufacture, but is also a firm be- 

 liever that rubber plantations on a large scale are the only 

 solution for the present high price of rubber. So thorough- 

 ly impressed is he with this that he is a member of the board 

 of the " Meanja " company, which has invested large suras in 

 rubber plantations in Kamerun, West Africa, and also in the 

 Samoa Kautschuk company. He is a member of the board 

 and treasurer of the Central Verein Deutscher Kautschuk- 

 waaren-Fabriken of Germany. 



Mr. Spannagel is, as would be expected from his exten- 

 sive travels, very much a man of the world. He speaks 

 seven languages and writes six. He is very much esteemed 



CEARA AS AN ANNUAL CROP. 



TO THK Editor of The India Rubber World : In a late 

 number of your paper you advocated planting Ceard rubber 

 as an annual crop, the same as sugar cane, staling that at 

 least as much rubber should be proc^iced per acre as cane produces 

 in sugar. As I take it, cane produces at least one ton of sugar per 

 acre and I beg to ask : ( i ) Could a ton of net rubber be harvested 

 yearly from such a field of one-year-old Ceard rubber canes? (2) 

 What soil, etc , is required? Yours respectfully, ED. maurer. 

 New York, February 7, 1906. 



[These questions form a problem that it would be difficult 

 if not impossible to answer satisfactorily at this time. A 

 solution is being earnestly sought, however, and those mak- 

 ing the experiments are confident of achieving success. We 

 shall keep a close watch on this phase of the rubber industry 

 and shall publish the result of our observations at as early 

 a date as possible. With regard to soil, and climate suitable 

 for planting Ceara, it is probable that arid land and a tropi- 

 cal climate in which there were marked wet and dry seasons 



would be the best. — The Editor.] 



* * * 



Mr. E. a. Saunders of the :Mishawaka Woolen Manufac- 

 turing Co. (Mishawaka, Indiana), who left New York for a 

 Mediterranean trip on February 17, said just before sailing . 



" I was exceedingly interested in your editorial in The 

 India Rubber World regarding rubber from cultivated 

 sources. I believe the suggestions in that article were very 

 wise and timely. You are working along the right lines, 

 and I hope you will keep it up. I know of no reason why 

 manj' rubber producers, as they- grow readily from slips, 

 could not be planted as an annual crop and the rubber gath- 

 ered from them just as sugar comes from the cane. Indeed, 

 I would go further than that and suggest that it is perfectly 

 possible that in our own country, that is, in the extreme 

 southern part, some of the rubber producers could be planted 

 as summer crops, the rubber cutting to be done in the fall, 

 and if there is any danger from cold to cover up the stumps 

 during the cooler season. " 



A CONSULAR REPORT ON GUAYULE. 



'npHE United States consul at Durango, Mr. Le Roy, re- 

 -*- ports to Washington : "The last Mexican official ga- 

 zette of patents and trade marks contains a dozen applications 

 for patents on processes for the extraction of this rubber bj- 

 Americans, Mexicans, and one German. The Continental 

 Rubber Co. is now operating their initial §200,000 Guayule 

 rubber factory at Torreon, and will make extensions. Pim- 

 ental & Bro. have received a twenty year federal concession 

 for securing the Guaj'ule rubber on government lands in the 

 states of Durango. Coahuila, Zacatecas. and San Luis Potosi. 

 They are to pay $25,000 annual rental for each 17,000 acre 

 tract marked ofi". Government inspection is provided to 

 avoid destroying young Guayule plants, and so perpetuate 

 the industry." 



Send for a free copy of Index to Mr. Pearson's "Crude 

 Rubber and Compounding Ingredients," to The India Rub- 

 ber World office. 



