April i, 1909.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



243 



The Growing Interest in Rubber Planting. 



A NEW RUBBER PLANTERS' ASSOCIATION. 



THERE has been formed with headquarters at Antwerp the 

 Association des Planteurs de Caoutchouc, for the general • 

 furtherance of the rubber planting interest, particularly in 

 Ceylon, British Malaya, Java, and Sumatra. Generally the new 

 organization is on the lines of the Rubber Growers' Association 

 maintained by British interests under the chairmanship of Mr. 

 H. Kerr Rutherford, of London, except that the Continental body 

 is of wider scope. Membership in the Antwerp association we 

 understand to be open to persons in any country who may be 

 interested actually in the culture of rubber or in the rubber goods 

 industry. The initial general committee is headed by Edouard 

 Bunge, a leading rubber importer of Antwerp, and includes Emile 

 Grisar, the official broker in the Antwerp trade, and also Dr. 

 A. G. N. Swart, who was president of the late Netherlands com- 

 mission at the International Rubber Exhibition at London, and 

 Dr. W. R. Tromp de Haas, whose connection with gutta- 

 percha planting in Java was noted in The India Rubber World 

 of March 1, 1909 (page 204.) The association publishes an offi- 

 cial monthly Bulletin, the first number of which was dated 

 January, 1909, and which promises to be an interesting publica- 

 tion. The offices of the association are at 48 Place de Meir, 

 Antwerp. 



BRITISH INVESTMENTS IN RUBBER. 



The investment of British capital in the production of rubber, 

 either on plantations or in the forest, continues on a large scale. 

 There can be, of course, no adequate record of the extent of 

 actual investments, but it is of interest to notice the number of 

 new companies registered in Great Britain in this line. . London 

 India-Ruber Journal has compiled a list of companies registered 

 in Great Britain alone during 1908, which may be summarized 

 as follows : 



To Operate in Companies. Capital. 



South or Central America 7 £458,500 



Sumatra 4 325,000 



Malaya 8 315,000 



Ceylon 4 265,000 



British North Borneo 2 230,000 



Java 3 170,000 



Africa 2 120,000 



South India i 60,000 



Not Stated 10 • 67,000 



Total 41 £2,010,500 



[Equivalent to $10,243,982.50, United States currency.] 



It is interesting to observe how attractive to British capital 

 are the Dutcli East Indies, which stand in the above table for 

 nearly one-fourth of the whole authorized capital of the com- 

 panies under review. The investments in the first line relate 

 mainly to a few large enterprises for developing forest rubber 

 in South America. 



During 1907 nineteen new joint stock companies were regis- 

 tered in Ceylon in connection with rubber planting in that colony, 

 with a total capitalization of 12,810.000 rupees [=$4,155,948.30]. 

 It is presumed that most of these companies have been formed 

 to take over plantations already in existence, which have made 

 sufficient progress to have become interesting to capitalists. 



GERMAN INTEREST IN RUBBER PLANTING. 



Particular attention has been called to the extent of invest- 

 ment of British capital in rubber culture by the fact that definite 

 results have been reached from plantations under British auspices 

 to a larger extent than in the case of any other country. Such 

 investments, however, have by no means been confined to Great 

 Britain. The German people, for example, have been very active 



of late in promoting rubber plantations, particularly in their 

 colonies in Africa. In L'Agruuomie Tropicatc (Brussels, January 

 25) E. De Wildeman gives a list of forty German companies in- 

 terested more or less in the cultivation of rubber, some of them 

 being devoted to this interest, exclusively, and others in rubber 

 in connection with other products. There is included in the list 

 the important New-Guinea-Compagnie, who, while extensive 

 planters of rubber, are interested also largely in cocoanuts and 

 cacao, and the Deutschen Ecuador Cacao Plantagen- und Export- 

 Gesellschaft, A. G. Of the companies named 17 are formed to 

 operate in German East Africa and 19 in Cameroon and Togo, 

 amount of capital stated for 36 of the companies is 100,460,600 

 marks [=$23,909,622.80]. 



RUBBER PLANTING IN THE DUTCH EAST INDIES. 



The extent to which capital has been interested in rubber 

 plantation enterprises in the Dutch East Indies probably is larger 

 than has been appreciated in rubber planting circles generally. 

 In the first number of Bulletin dc I'Association des Planteurs d^ 

 Caoutchouc appears a list of the companies which have been 

 registered in different countries for carrying on the business of 

 rubber planting in the Dutch East Indies, with the amount of 

 capital stated in each case. The latter detail may be summarized 

 as follows : 



In Java : 



Dutch companies Aorins 3.426,000 



British companies 5,020,000 



Belgian and French companies 12,670,000 



German companies 904,000 



In Sumatra. Borneo and Riouw. 



Dutch companies 1,350,000 



British companies 16,164,000 



Belgian and French companies 7,400,000 



German companies 335,000 



Total florins 48,089,000 



[Total equivalent to $19,331,778.] 



The list includes a total of 69 companies, of which 43 have- 

 been formed to operate in Java and 26 in Sumatra, Borneo, and 

 Riouw. Twenty-one of these companies are Dutcli, 25 British, 

 17 Belgian and French, and 6 German. 



GOOD YIELD IN THE MALAY STATES. 



The Federated Malay States Rubber Co., Limited, an Ant- 

 werp company, during three years of operation (June i to May 

 31) have reported yields from their plantation as follows: 



1906. 1907. 1908. 



Rubber produced (pounds) 13,323 32,175 66,725 



Trees tapped 12.335 14.196 



Average per tree (pounds) 2.6 4.72 



Average price realized $i.3S-}4 $i-3iJ4 ■•■• 



Profits for the year (francs) 74.003 173.980 180,061 



Dividend s'/c g.87c 814% 



The oldest trees on the company's estate were planted in 1899, 

 but only a small proportion are so old as this. 

 THEY HAD RUBBER TO BURN. 



In the Mexican Herald (February 13) is reported a fire on the 

 plantation of La Esperanza Rubber Co., in the state of Vera Cruz, 

 in which was destroyed "more than a ton of fine creamed rubber 

 and possibly as much scrap," the product of the first year's tap- 

 ping, which began in October last. Most of the rubber was in 

 cases ready for shipping. La Esperanza company began opera- 

 tions about ten years ago. the incorporators being residents of 

 Providence, Rhode Island. The manager, Carlton Hale, had 

 developed a new method for smoking rubber after creaming, 

 and it was in connection with such work that the fire occurred. 



