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THE INDIA RUBBER ^VORLD 



[June i, 1902. 



ment, and was sent as one of its representatives to the Pan 

 American Exposition at Buffalo last year. There he interested 

 several citizens in rubber culture, resulting in the organization 

 of the present company. 



CONSOLIDATED UBERO PLANTATIONS CO. 



[Properties at Ubero. state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Oftices : No. Sq Slate stri-t-t, 

 Boston, Massachusetts.] 



iNCORl'ORATED April 3, under the Maine laws, to deal in real 

 estate and operate plantations ; capital, $2,500,000. The Mex- 

 ican Coffee and Rubber Co., in 1898, purchased 5000 acres o( 

 land near Ubero, portions of which, from time to time, have 

 been sold to rubber and coffee planting companies. The first 

 1000 acres of land was sold to the Ubero Plantation Co. of In- 

 dianapolis, Indiana. The owners of the remaining 4000 acres, 

 and of 2000 acres adjoining, have united in forming the new 

 company named above. The parties to the consolidation are 

 the Mexican Coffee and Rubber Co., The Mutual Planters' Co., 

 The Indiana Rubber Co., and Littell & Co., all of Indianapolis ; 

 The Ubero Plantation Co. No. 2, of Terre Haute, Indiana, and 

 the Wisconsin CofTee Co., of Milwaukee, together with a num- 

 ber of small planters, some of whom hold not more than 100 

 acres of land. The Consolidated company thus begins with 

 6000 acres of cleared land, five established development camps, 

 company's office, plantation house, and store, and a pineapple 

 tannery, together with the various plantings of rubber, coffee, 

 pineapples, etc. William D. Owen, the original purchaser of 

 the lands on which this development work has been done, is 

 chairman of the executive committee of the Consolidated com- 

 pany, and F. L. Torres, general manager of the various Ubero 

 rubber planting companies, will sustain a similar relation to the 

 Consolidated company. 



PAN AMERICAN PLANTERS' CO. 



[Plantation " Santa Isabel," in tiie slate of Oaxaca, Mexico. Office: Nos. 155- 

 155 La Salle street, Chicago, Illinois.] 



Incorporated in Illinois October 19, 1900; capital, $50,000. 

 No active work has been done until recently, but the capital is 

 now nearly all subscribed and development is about to begin on 

 a 5000 acre tract between the Colorado and Trinidad rivers, 

 near the confluence forming the San Juan, in Oaxaca. It is 

 also near the Vera Cruz and Pacific railway and twenty miles 

 from San Juan Evangelista, Vera Cruz. A specialty is to be 

 made of rubber planting, for which the land is believed to be 

 well adapted on account of the number of native trees found. 

 Officers : Hon. Charles Foster, late secretary of the treasury of 

 the United States, Fostoria, Ohio, president ; James P. Hankey, 

 vice president ; Arthur L.Moore, stcr^laxy: John A. Wilferth, 

 treasurer — all of Chicago. James Brydon is plantation man- 

 ager. 



ISTHMUS PLANTATION ASSOCIATION OF MEXICO. 



["Hacienda del Corte," district of Juchitan, state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Office: 

 Herman building, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.] 



The camera seems destined to play an important part in the 

 development of plantation enterprises in Mexico. As now 

 managed, the various planting companies draw their capital 

 from innumerable investors, scattered throughout the United 

 States, most of whom contribute but a small amount each. 

 Naturally many people will hesitate to part with their money, 

 to be invested too far away from home for them ever to hope 

 to see the work in progress for which they are paying. But the 

 liberal use of photography has put it in the power of the in- 

 vestors in rubber planting to see every step in development 

 made by their companies. Thus a recent pamphlet issued by 

 the company named above shows thirty-seven photographic 

 views — of lands being cleared, of rubber and coffee nurseries, 

 of transplanted trees in various stages of growth, of buildings. 



of laborers in their different forms of employment, and so on. 

 It is, altogether, a very interesting publication, and particularly 

 in the suggestion of the utility of the camera for reporting 

 what is being done on one plantation. It is the custom with 

 these planting companies, for the investors to select annually 

 an "inspector" to visit Mexico and report on their interests. 

 We should think it advisable to select always an inspector 

 capable of taking "snapshots" at what he saw, and having 

 his pictures developed for the benefit of the persons who are 

 paying the bills. 



THE OBISPO RUBBER PLANTATION CO. 



[Plantation " El Obispo," Tuxtepec, stale of Oaxaca, Mexico. Offices : Park 

 Row building. New York.] 



The company above named have issued " Book No. i," to 

 be one of a series showing from time to time the progress made 

 on their plantation. Here are shown more than fifty photo- 

 graphic views of scenes on the plantation, embracing lands 

 freshly cleared, rubber nurseries, transplanting, wild rubber 

 trees, laborers at work and at rest, plantation buildings, etc. 

 ^^C. S. Donaldson, of Scottdale, P.°nnsylvania, who was se- 

 lected as the first annual inspector, has made a report to his 

 fellow shareholders under date of March 15, 1902. He found 

 40,000 trees planted, and nurseries containing over 700,000 

 seedlings ; also 100 acres of corn in tassel, being the second 

 crop of corn on the same ground since the clearing of the vir- 

 gin forest ten months before. He states that about 1500 acres 

 had been cleared at the date of his visit. 



THE IMPERIAL PLANTATION CO. 



[Plantation in the state of Vera Cruz, Mexico. Office ; Society for Savings 

 building, Cleveland, Ohio.] 



The president of this company, who is president also of the 

 Mexican Investment and Manufacturing Co., informs The 

 India Rubber World that one of the leading rubber manu- 

 facturing companies has agreed to take all the rubber that can 

 be produced on their two plantations, now under development, 

 in consideration of the rubber being specially prepared. 



A aUESTION OF BOOKKEEPING. 



To THE Editor of The India Rubber World ; If not too much 

 trouble, will you kindly inform me whether a plantation company having 

 its property in Mexico can keep all its accounts in English, or does the 

 Mexican law compel the use of Spanish ? Perhaps you can ascertain 

 the common practice of American companies doing business there, and 

 I trust you can favor me on this point, as we do not wish to be tied up 

 to Spanish any further than is absolutely necessary to comply with the 

 law. Very respectfully, . 



Providence, Rhode Island, May 24, 1902. 



Any company transacting business in Mexico is required by 

 law to keep books, the character of which is specified, and 

 which must be open for inspection by the authorities. They 

 must be kept in the language of the country, with all accounts 

 expressed in the money of the country, besides which each 

 page of such books must have an internal revenue stamp af- 

 fixed. Mexican plantation companies with headquarters in the 

 United States receive their balance sheets and other accounts 

 expressed in Mexican money, to be converted into gold values 

 at the current rate of exchange. 



CONAKRY (FRENCH AFRICA). 

 Some views of cultivated Castilloa elastica rubber plants now 

 growing at the experimental gardens at Conakry, in the 

 Revue des Cultures Colon/ales, are wonderfully like pictures of 

 the same trees growing in Mexico, but for the presence in the 

 views of African natives. There are illustrations also of the 

 Para and Ceara rubber trees in the same gardens, where no 

 small interest is manifested in rubber cultivation. 



