84 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[November i. 1908. 



PLANTING RESULTS IN SUMATRA. 



5to-Pb«^ 



Vol. 39. 



NOVEMBER 1. 1908. 



No. 2. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PAGE. 



Editorial 



Politics and Business 55 



Rubber Planting to Date 55 



The Taxi Cab Trust 56 



Minor Editorial 56 



The Uses of Gutta-Percha Tissue 57 



Guayule in the United States 58 



The India Rubber Interest in the East 



M. Kelway Bamber 59 

 [With 8 Illustrations.] 



Some Synthetic Rubbers I Have Met 



Henry C. Pearson 62 



The Late Theodore S. Bassett 64 



[With a Portrait.] 



The India-Rubber Trade in Great Britain 



Our Regular Correspondent 65 

 [The Exhibition at Olympia. Goloshes and Flint Roads. Liberian 

 Rubber Corporation. Bohemian Notes. Franco-British Exhi- 

 bition.] 



Taxicabs in New York and Europe 68 



Recent Patents Relating to Rubber 69 



[United States. Great Britain. France.] 



Miscellaneous: 



Large Orders for Electrical Plant ." 58 



Vulcanina 58 



Rubber Interests in Europe 61 



Rubber Supplies and Prospects 61 



Fossilized Rubber Trees 61 



Manchester and Boston 63 



India-rubber Goods in Commerce 66 



"Rubber Heels Bad for Thieves" 65 



Netherlands Gutta-percha Co 67 



Sandmann's Process for Latex 67 



Visit of a Rubber E.\pert to Africa 67 



New Trade Publications yz 



The Cotton Goods Market 79 



Planting Results in Sumatra 84 



The International Rubber Exhibition 69 



[With 7 Illustrations.] 



The Continental Caoutchouc Works, at Hanover 



Our British Correspondent 72 

 [With 2 Illustrations. J 



New Goods in the Market 74 



[With 5 Illustrations.] 



News of the American Rubber Trade 76 



[With an Illustration.] 



The Trade at Akron Our Correspondent 67 



The Trade at San Francisco Our Correspondent 73 



Review of the Crude Rubber Market 79 



Rubber Scrap Prices. 



Late New York quotations — prices paid by consuiners for car- 

 load lots, per pound — show a slight advance, as compared with 

 last month : 



Old rubber boots and shoes — domestic 8j/2@ 8% 



Old rubber boots and shoes — foreign 8'4@ SJ/^ 



Pneumatic bicycle tires 6 @ 65^ 



Automobile tires 6 @ 6j4 



Solid rubber wagon and carriage tires 7 @8 



White trimmed rubber lo5^@ll 



Heavy black rubber 4%® 4% 



Air brake hose ^H@ 4 



Garden hose 2 @ 2j4 



Fire and large hose 254@ 1% 



Matting I^^® i§^ 



THE first annual report of The Sumatra Para Rubber Plan- 

 tations, Limited, for the year ended June 30, 1908, pre- 

 sented at the meeting in London, October 2, mentioned 

 that the rubber crop had amounted to 62,700 pounds, and the 

 net average price realized, 3s. 4.51 rf. [= about 82.1 cents] per 

 pound. The cost of producing rubber was is. i.Syd. [= about 

 28.1 cents] per pound. The number of trees tapped, planted 

 between 1898 and 1905, was 26,577, making the average yield, 

 for young and old trees, about 2.36 pounds per tree. The 

 year's revenues from rubber amounted to iu,053 14.?., and from 

 coffee, £3,280 I2s. The dividend was 10 per cent, on the out- 

 standing capital, the disbursement amounting to $34,065.50. 



In recording these facts we happen to refer to the first men- 

 tion of rubber-planting in Sumatra which ever appeared in The 

 India Rubber World. It was a summary of an article in Cummi- 

 Zcitung [August 20, 1897 — page 18], in which the promise in the 

 prospectus of a rubber planting company of an ultimate profit of 

 5 to 6 marks [^$1.19 to $1.43] per tree was seriously dis- 

 counted by the German editor. From the figures given above, 

 however, in the report of a plantation founded after the date 

 of the Gummi-Zcitung's article, it would appear that the trees 

 tapped, without reference to age, averaged 2,36 pounds of rub- 

 ber, each, which realized S4 cents (gold) over the cost of col- 

 lections, or an average profit of $1.27 per tree, or 5.34 marks. 

 This at least comes well within the limits of the early Sumatra 

 prospectus, and no doubt the figures given would be largely ex- 

 ceeded if results were confined alone to the ten-year old trees 

 t,-ippcd. 



CONDITION OF "HEVEA" RUBBEE IN JAVA. 



The appearance of indications of canker in Hcvca plantations 

 in Java, has given rise to some alarm, and the Batavia Nicuwsblad 

 has counseled the rooting up of the Hevea rubber and its re- 

 placement with "rambong" (Ficiis). The Sumatra Post, how- 

 ever, regards the situation less seriously, and quotes the manager 

 of the United Serdang (Sumatra) Rubber Plantations' Co., as 

 asserting that among their two and three-year old Hcvea trees 

 only I in 2,500 had any disease at all, and of these very few 

 bore any marks of canker. Mr. Clarence Harrington writes to 

 the Nicuwsblad that on a tour of Deli, in Sumatra, he found no 

 evidence of canker had been heard of there, and that many 

 planters had uprooted their "rambong" rubber and put in Hevea. 

 As for Java, he says that planters from the Straits and Ceylon, 

 who have visited that island, have nothing but praise for the 

 rubber plantations there. Such is the confidence of British capi- 

 talists in Java rubber that they have invested 20,000,000 guilders 

 [=$8,040,000] in that line of planting enterprise in the island. 



The editor of the Ceylon Observer, in cabling to his paper his 

 arrival in Java on a visit, added : "Java's rapid growth of rubber 

 is wonderful." 



The first annual report of Bantamsche Plantagen Maatschappij 

 (the Bantam Plantation Co.), a Dutch company with head- 

 quarters at The Hague, and plantations in the residency of 

 Bantam, at the western end of Java, operated with a capital of 

 1,000,000 florins [=$403,000], shows standing at the end of May 

 last, 99,313 Hevea trees and 1,267 Ficus elastica. One of the 

 directors, Dr. A. G. N, Swart, was the president of the Nether- 

 lands Commission at the recent London Rubber Exhibition. 



Speaking of tires, it must not be assumed that automobiles 

 are the whole thing in swelling the demand for rubber. Not to 

 go further, there are "go carts" — more go carts than motor cars. 

 The advertisement of a single store in a New York newspaper, 

 in a corner devoted to go carts mentions numerous styles, at a 

 wide range of prices, and each is described as being rubber tired, 

 but more than that, several descriptions of tires appear. There 

 are baby carriages to suit every purse, but all with some kind of 

 rubber equipment. 



