January i, 1903.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



115 



several millions of capital from the United States have been 

 invested already in Mexican rubber plantations. The extent, 

 however, to which these and similar enterprises in other coun- 

 tries can be made profitable depends on the solution of many 

 new agricultural problems." 



FAILURE OF " CASTILLOA " IN KAMERUN. 



The annual report of the Moliwe Plantation Co., presented 

 at the annual meeting at Hamburg on October 14, contains 

 the following reference to the company's experience with rub- 

 ber in the German colony of Kamerun : 



" The culture of the Castzlloa rubber tree is to be described a 

 failure, because these trees, which otherwise thrive so excel- 

 lently, have been destroyed entirely, with the exception of a 

 few trees, by bore worms, and at the end of the year embraced 

 in the report only 950 trees remained standing ; the culture, for 

 the time being, will not be extended. The Kickxiax\x\>he.i tree, 

 which is at home in Kamerun, seems to thrive especially well, 

 an area of 13 hectares [= 33 acres] has been planted with 4720 

 trees ; it is used also as shade for cacao, and planted along the 

 banks of streams and 

 ditches and by the 

 side of roads. Exper- 

 iments are also to be 

 made with Fictts elas- 

 tica and Gutta-per- 

 cha plantsoriginating 

 from the south sea 

 coloiiies, where they 

 were planted by the 

 botanist Schlechter 

 in charge of the expe- 

 dition inaugurated by 

 the colonial agricul- 

 tural committee." 



The Moliwe com- 

 pany was formed in 

 Hamburg, in 1899, 

 with a capital of i,- 

 100,000 marks, to 

 plant cacao and rub- 

 ber in the colony 

 named above. At 

 one time it was 

 planned to cultivate 

 Castzlloa extensively, and one shipment of 400,000 seeds of this 

 species was obtained from Costa Rica. A large number of 

 these, however, were spoiled in shipment. 



RUBBER PLANTATIONS IN COSTA RICA. 

 The following list of plantations of rubber {Castzlloa elastica) 

 existing in the San Carlos valley of Costa Rica in April, 1903, 

 has been supplied to the Tropical Agriculturist by Ed. Coles : 



ACKES. 



Umfried & Schloch, at the head of Tabla grande ; begun 4 



years ago 98 840 



Lloppenstadt cS: Gillett, in Banco de la China ; planted 6 years. 7.413 

 A Long, below mouth of Arenal river ; planted various times 



^ince i8g7 91.427 



Mercedes Queseda ; planted 6 years 14.S26 



Kotelmann & Heynsohn ; planted 6 years 14 826 



Tneodore F Koschny ; planted i and 2 years 64.246 



.Mr. Koschny and others, in Cano Negro ; i year old 9 S84 



A. Long in Cano Negro ; i year old 148:6 



Carl Grutzmacher, in Cano Negro ; 3 years old 9 8S4 



INDIA-RUBBER IN THE PHILIPPINES 



Total 326.172 



[Costa Rican lands are measured in hectares, converting which into acres gives 

 the somewhat unusual fractions appearing in the above taf)le.] 



Besides the above, Max Bergmann is mentioned as having 



several hundred trees planted fn Cafio Negro, i and 3 years 

 old. Also, Mr. Koschny was preparing to plant 39^4 acies more 

 on his own estate, and in connection with other parties in Cafio 

 Negro was planting in the spring 247 acres, and making plans 

 to plant 865 acres later. Mr. Long was also mentioned as plan- 

 ning an additional planting of 74 acres, and an American fam- 

 ily named Hogan were preparing to plant largely at the mouth 

 of the Tres Amigos river. The San Carlos river, by the way, 

 discharges into the San Juan, which separates Costa Rica from 

 Nicaragua, and forms pait of the projected Nicaragua canal 

 route. Mr. Coles suggests that in the event of the construc- 

 tion of this canal the San Carlos region would be settled rap- 

 idly, while the discarding of this route would lead some of 

 those already on the ground to move away. 



I.MPORTATION OF RUBBER IN THE PHILIPPINES. 

 The illustration on this page has been derived from a photo- 

 graph taken in the town of Zamboanga, island of Mindanao, 

 representing the first shipment of native rubber from that port 

 to the United States. The rubber contained in the cases 



shown is undoubted- 

 ly the product of 

 the Ficus elastica and 

 is very similar to 

 Assam rubber. It 

 has very likely been 

 collected and 

 shipped for years by 

 Chinese faders, and 

 its diversion to the 

 United States shows 

 a typical bit of Amer- 

 ican enterprise. It 

 seems that several 

 employes of the 

 Bowers Rubber Co. 

 enlisted to serve in 

 the army in the 

 Philippines and 

 while there saw the 

 rubber and commun- 

 icated to the presi 

 dent of the Bowers 

 Rubber Co. a report 

 on the collection of 

 the rubber and its sale. The enterprising president of the 

 company immediately sent his own agent to the Philippines, 

 got samples of the rubber, and had shipments started at once 

 for San Krancisco. 



THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT ANU RUBBER. 

 To THE Editor of The India Rubber World : lam informed 

 by a man interested in rubber growing in Mexico that the Mexican gov 

 ernment decided recently to go out of the rubber busitiess— /. <-. , that it 

 had decided to give up its experiment stations, or something to that 

 effect ; that it was satisfied that the climate or something else vital was 

 not quite right. They could grow the trees, but when it came to the 

 yield, the showing was not satisfactory. I wish to ask you fcr the facts 

 in the case. I am very much interested in this business financially as 

 well as otherwise. F. w. B. 



Chicago, Illinois, December 23, 1902. 



We have never heard before that the Mexican government 

 had gone into the rubber business, or had established experi- 

 ment stations in connection with rubber. Such planting of 

 rubber as has been done in Mexico, has been done by foreign- 

 ers, using their own capital, and while most of the trees 



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