June 1, 1913.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



459 



The Plantation Rubber Industry. 



By Cyril E. 

 A PAPER KKAD AT THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL 

 EARLY HISTORY. 



IT is remarkable that — as civilization has become dependent on 

 cultivated produce — the profitable cultivation of rubber should 

 have been, for years, open to doubt. 

 It was in 1876 (not less than 36 years ago) that Hevea seeds 

 were brought from Brazil to Europe by that prince of smugglers, 

 Mr. H. A. Wickham. There was an earlier attempt, but as the 

 few seedlings raised all died, we need not waste time over that. 

 From the 70.000 seeds collected in Brazil by Mr. \\'ickham, 2,800 



Cyril E. S. Baxend.\le. 



plants were raised at Kew Gardens (London) and, in the same 

 year, shipped to the Perideniya Gardens of Ceylon (Ridley tells 

 us) as a depot for the plants from which the cultivation might 

 be spread all over those British Colonies wherein the plant could 

 thrive. 



In 1877 a case of 22 plants reached Singapore and were suc- 

 cessfully planted by Mr. Murton, the then curator of the newly 

 founded Botanic Gardens there. The same year the first Hevea 

 trees arrived in the Malay States. Two cases were sent from 

 Ceylon to the late Sir Hugh Low (British resident of Perak) 

 who planted them at Kwala Kangsar, and, I am glad to say, he 

 lived long enough to see something of the great success of the 

 industry that he helped to found. 



It may seem strange that these trees reached maturity many 

 years before it was realized that they were capable of yielding a 

 sufficient quantity of rubber to make their regular tapping profit- 

 able. The only explanation I can offer for this is that the duty 

 of tapping them was relegated to Sakeis (Malayan Aboriginals), 

 who adopted the same methods they applied to the collection of 

 wild rubber; that is to say, they hacked them with choppers, 

 while the results they achieved were insufficient to tempt any 

 capitalist to put ten cents into the business. 



It is to our scientist friends that we owe the primary knowl- 

 edge of how these trees might be made profitable. On what we 

 now consider to have been a red-letter day in the year 1888, Mr. 

 H. N. Ridley was appointed director of the Botanic Gardens in 

 Singapore and very soon afterwards commenced experimental 

 tapping; but it was not until 1891 that the first sample of planta- 

 tion Para was sent to London from Malaya, and was favorably 



6". Ba.vcndalc. 



RUUUER CONFERENCE, HELD IN NEW YORK, 1912. 



reported upon by experts. During the nineties, several gentle- 

 men in Ceylon, and Mr. Derry and my learned colleague, Mr. 

 Leonard Wray, in Malaya, continued the experiments. 



The first actual sale recorded from Malaya was in 1899, from 

 the trees planted by Sir Hugh Low, and realized 3s. lOd. a pound. 

 The trees were then 22 years old. To the brothers Kindersley 

 belongs the honor of first planting rubber on a commercial scale 

 in our country. That was in 1895, and within three years the 

 late Mr. \V. W. Bailey and several other planters, including the 

 humble individual now addressing you, had summoned up suffi- 

 cient courage to plant a few hundred acres amongst them. To 

 attribute this slow development to lack of enterprise would be 

 unjust. If any explanation is required it must be attributed to 

 lack of money. At the time of which I am speaking, we were all 

 coffee or sugar planters, struggling for a bare, very bare, exist- 

 ence. Some of us may have had the privilege of being on terms 

 of a nodding acquaintance with men of means, but not many of 

 these could recollect that rubber was useful for any practical 

 purpose, except for the erasure of pencil marks. 



A favored few had seen or heard of a Mr. Charles Rolls, 

 traveling in a horseless carriage preceded by an ancient man on 

 foot, carrying a red flag as a danger signal ; but, probably, none 

 of these realized that this object of merriment was the fore- 

 runner of the greatest mechanical industry of the age, or if they 

 did, would not, at any rate, have found it a reason for supporting 

 the schemes of would-be rubber planters. 



Rumors of remarkable results from the first planted Hevea 

 trees of Ceylon and Malaya reached Europe, and as the years 

 rolled on a few speculative — or may I call them, far-sighted — 

 persons staked a portion of their savings on the new venture. 



The extension of the area under Hevea in Malaya, which in 

 1905 amounted to about 38,000 acres, increased at an average rate 

 from that year of about 70,000 acres per annum. The total area 

 at the end of last year (1911) was 542,877 acres. 

 THE BOOM. 



During 1909 the income from the older companies attracted the 

 attention of the investing and speculating public of Europe in 

 general — and Britain in particular — as being unusually large for 

 an agricultural industry. At the same time the value of crude 

 rubber went up by leaps and bounds, bewildering even to those 

 acquainted with the elastic nature of the subject; and indiscrim- 

 inate speculation was indulged in, of which the promoter of 

 many a wild-cat proposition took full advantage. 



It is said that the boom far exceeded that which heralded rail- 

 way development 70 years ago and can only be compared with 

 another that occurred in the reign of our late Queen Anne in 

 connection with a venture known as the South Sea Bubble. 



Well, our Bubble, has since deflated somewhat, I am glad to 

 say, but it has not burst; and I think it may be said that the 

 planters who had borne the burden and heat of the day generally 

 kept their heads in spite of the somewhat embarrassing attention 

 paid to their humble efforts, and this had much to do with steady- 

 ing the market when the bubble was soaring, and also in stopping 

 total deflation when investors rushed to the other extreme. 

 CLIMATIC CONDITIONS. 



The reason the Malay Peninsula attracted most attention for 

 this purpose was, primarily, its regular rainfall. It is commonly 

 said that there are two seasons in that country. One is the wet, 

 and the other is the d d wet season. 



This peculiarity is due to its unique situation as the meeting 

 place of the N-E Monsoon of the China Sea and the S-W Mon- 

 soon of the Indian Ocean. After the subsiding of the rains of the 



