122 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[January i, 1909. 



properties, or combinations, whether by hand labor or by 

 machinery." No matter in what shape rubber may be 

 marketed, or by what means it may have been shaped, it 

 is not an "article for use" until it has undergone certain 

 manipulations which are lacking in the case of the recent 

 imports at New York. 



The difference in this case from others is that the 

 primitive methods of preparing rubber from latex in the 

 forest have been supplanted on the Ceylon and Malaya 

 plantations with mechanical processes. The result is a 

 cleaner rubber and one more desired by manufacturers 

 for certain purposes. But the rubber as imported has no 

 commercial value except as a raw material for use in 

 making the rubber goods of commerce. Every essential 

 process in rubber manufacture must be applied to the 

 mechanically pressed rubber from plantations, the same as 

 to forest rubber which has been prepared without the aid 

 of machinery. The Ceylon product, therefore, must be 

 "crude rubber." 



PLANTATION RUBBER YIELDS. 



THE latest mail advices to hand at this writing 

 report the shipment from Ceylon and Malaya, 

 during something less than eleven months of this year, of 

 3,401,734 pounds of plantation rubber. The figure for 

 the corresponding period of 1907 was 1,935,103 pounds, 

 and for the preceding year 908,965 pounds. Five years 

 ago the amount was almost nil. The rapid growth in the 

 volume of shipments evidently is due (1) to the increas- 

 ing number of tappable trees, and (2) to an increased 

 annual yield from those trees which have now been 

 tapped for three or four seasons. It seems worth while 

 to emphasize, in this connection, that in the mass of 

 information that has come from the Hevea planting 

 region of the Far East — reports so detailed as almost to 

 suggest that every individual rubber tree has been 

 scrutinized — no hint has appeared that one tree of suit- 

 able size has failed to yield some rubber, or that 

 any tree, once tapped, has failed to yield at subsequent 

 tappings. 



Thus far it has not been possible, however, to fix upon 

 a definite minimum yield to be expected reasonably from 

 a cultivated rubber tree, of any given age or size. But 

 this is hardly essential. Is there a fixed law of yield of 

 tea or coffee plantations, or of wheat or corn, or of 

 grapes or pears? It is enough if, generally, the product 

 per acre, or for a whole estate, affords a profit. The 

 figures given above show that cultivated trees do yield 

 rubber, and details constantly coming forward indicate 

 an average production of 2 or 3 pounds per tree over con- 

 siderable areas, taking young and old trees together. In 

 addition to the data on this subject on another page of 

 this issue, it may be noted that Mr. J. B. Carruthers 

 estimates that all the rubber trees tapped in Malaya in 

 1907 yielded an average of 1 pound 12 ounces; the trees 

 included in Perak alone yielded 2 pounds 1 ounce and 

 those in Negri Sembilan 2 pounds 7 ounces. These are 



not exceptional yields, but the figures relate to upwards 

 of 1,300,000 trees. 



We might pause here to consider the ultimate rubber 

 production of Malaya, where, according to Mr. Car- 

 ruthers's figures, the rubber planted to date — nearly all 

 within three years — covers about 280 square miles of 

 territory. In this great forest formed by the hand of 

 man it is estimated that there are 97,558,440 rubber trees, 

 planted generally at what is intended to be permanent dis- 

 tances apart. If all these eventually should give a yearly 

 average of 2 pounds, the result would vastly exceed the 

 world's present total production of rubber. In none of 

 these estimates, by the way, is any account taken of Cey- 

 lon or the Dutch Indies, or of any part of America or 

 Africa where rubber has been planted. 



But our interest at this time is confined to the present 

 yield of plantation rubber, and it appears abundantly 

 established that the yield is ample for present profits on 

 a scale beyond what is usual in most branches of agricul- 

 ture. We must not leave the subject, however, without 

 pointing out that all the figures used in this connection 

 bear solely upon the cultivation of one rubber species — 

 Hci-ea — in one part of tlie world. The study of other 

 species, and under other conditions, remains to be car- 

 ried to a practical conclusion. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMAZON. 



' I 'HE company referred to on another page as hav- 



1 



ing been formed to execute greatly needed im- 



provement works at the port of Para, through which the 

 great supply of Amazon rubber passes and at which 

 arrives the miscellaneous assortment of the world's 

 products which pay for this rubber, is composed of men 

 of responsibility and distinction in the development of 

 enterprises in new countries, which the Amazon region 

 distinctly is. The merit of their proposition is evident by 

 the sale of their bonds in the leading bourses of the world, 

 though this may count less with some people than the 

 success of the members of the director)' in such enter- 

 prises as the Canadian Pacific Railway, the United Fruit 

 Co., and certain important undertakings in South 

 America. 



It is impossible that the southern half of this hemis- 

 phere should always remain undeveloped. It happens 

 that the development of the Amazon states naturally pro- 

 ceeds along the lines of least resistance by handling its 

 most valuable natural product — rubber. In order to 

 handle rubber economically and to get into the rubber 

 interior the manufactures of North America and Europe 

 it is necessary to make it possible for ships to approach 

 nearer to the city of Para. What is proposed to be done 

 there has been done on an immense scale at Liverpool and 

 in New York, and why not at Para ? The work is slower 

 at Para because of a smaller volume of traffic up to date, 

 and the fact that the owners of capital are not generally 

 informed as to the possibilities of commercial develop- 



