450 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[June 1, 1913. 



public demand for something new. It is quite prob- 

 able that this natural ambition to manufacture some- 

 thing in which, for a time at least, they would have 

 a monopoly, is a sufficient incentive t<.) keep the manu- 

 facturing mind constantly at work on the possibilities 

 of new and original lines of production. 



But the one thing that will best serve as an encour- 

 agement to the extension of rubber manufacture into 

 entirely new fields will be for the producers of crude 

 rubber to bring their costs down, and keep them 

 down, so that they can offer low prices not to a few 

 manufacturers under special arrangement for a speci- 

 fied use, but to all manufacturers alike, fur whatever 

 use may seem to them to promise success and profit. 



THE ADVANTAGE OF COMBINING TIRES WITH 

 FOOTWEAR. 



' I 'HE venerable adage about the undesirability of 

 •*• liaving one's eggs all in one basket, is as sound 

 now as on the day when it was predicated. The 

 United States Rubber Co. recognized the sanity of this 

 saw, when some seven years ago it purchased the 

 control of the Rubber Goods Manufacturing Co. Up 

 to that time its product Iiad consisted almost entirely 

 of rubber footwear. It perceived the desirability of 

 having something else to fall back upon, when the 

 demand for footwear was slack, so it acquired a num- 

 ber of capable tire mills. 



.\ number of the other large rubber manufacturing 

 companies have taken a similar step — for instance, the 

 Hood Rubber Co., which has added a well-equipped tire 

 department to its footwear plant, and the Goodrich and 

 Diamond companies, which some time ago increased the 

 variety and volume of their product by the installation of 

 efficient footwear departments. 



There couldn't be a finer combination than the 

 manufacture of tires with the manufacture of boots 

 and shoes. One insures the other. The consumer is 

 kept consuming, no matter what the meteorological con- 

 ditions are. When it is prime weather for motoring. 

 it is poor weather for rubber boots and arctics, and 

 when everybody is clamoring for hip boots and high- 

 top gaiters, nobody wants a tire. But the demand for 

 one or the other goes continuously on. 



Last winter, for instance, was an unfavorable one for 

 the makers of footwear. In the greater part of the 

 country there was but a light fall of snow. In the big 

 cities, at anj- rate, one might have gone through the 

 entire winter quite comfortably with only a pair of 



footholds. But the same open winter that made many 

 people obli\ious to the rubber boot and arctic, kept the 

 call for automobile shoes and inner tubes continuous, 

 for the car that in normal winters has been jacked up 

 for a four months' rest was out daily on the roadway, 

 wearing out its tires. 



Where a manufacturer has both a footwear and a 

 tire liepartment he need not concern himself about the 

 prognostications of the weather bureau. Every kind 

 of weather brings grist to his mill. 



RUBBER IN COLLEGE THESES. 



A X interesting side light on the rubber industry, illus- 

 *■ *• trating the general interest that the public takes 

 in this subject, is shown by its popularity as a theme for 

 college theses and school compositions. There is lying 

 at this moment on the editorial desk a finely bound type- 

 written volume of 35,000 words, with sundry appendices 

 of charts, maps and tables, on the history of the Amer- 

 ican rubber industry. It has been preparetl by a candi- 

 date for an advanced degree in one of the largest of our 

 American colleges, as a partial fulfilment of the require- 

 ments for securing that degree. The editor has been 

 asked to look it over. It is a worthy and painstaking 

 eft'ort, and shows a wide reading in the literature of 

 india-rubber. 



Two days ago an application was received from a 

 senior of another large university for suggestions as to 

 where the best information could be obtained on the 

 manufacture of rubber in the United States, with a view 

 to preparing a graduation thesis on the subject. Imme- 

 diately following that came a young woman, about to 

 graduate from a high school, accompanied by her in- 

 structor, also in search of information on this interesting 

 topic, as a preparation for the writing of a high school 

 composition. 



The editor seized a few fleeting moments from his 

 busy life to give what assistance he could to these appli- 

 cants for rubber knowledge. These are not isolated 

 cases, for during the last year many similar requests have 

 been received — sometimes from students — sometimes 

 from teachers — for light on the great industry of rubber 

 production, gathering and manufacture. 



Possibly the popularity of this subject as a theme for 

 school and college work is due to the fact that it is newer 

 than most of the subjects that have been used for this 

 purpose since schools were. But probably it is owing to- 

 the amount of space devoted to the various phases of rub- 

 ber manufacture, and particularly to tire making, in the- 



