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THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[August i, 1901. 



doubt but the fair is a success. Architecturally it is beau- 

 tiful. Its industrial exhibits are satisfactory, and marked 

 by a tendency toward displays that appeal because of their 

 worth rather than their size. Taking the rubber trade 

 exhibits for example, while they in no sense reflect the im- 

 portance of the trade as a whole, they are certainly excel- 

 lent, and the industry need not be at all ashamed of them. 

 It is also noticeable that the visiting public linger long in 

 their vicinity, attracted no doubt by the mystery that to 

 the world at large still surrounds " gum elastic." The Mid- 

 way, the art galleries, the magnificent government exhibit, 

 all claim their own, and in spite of many adverse condi- 

 tions, visitors are coming from far and near in constantly 

 increasing numbers. 



The fact is patent that the American people have money 

 to spend in traveling, plenty of it, and American rail- 

 roads stand ready to carry any and all where they will. 

 Besides this, as sight seers we enjoy the general hasty 

 smattering of knowledge, architectural, industrial, artistic 

 that an exposition affords. It is like the big Sunday 

 newspaper — a hodge podge of good, bad, and indifferent. 

 Sober sense condemns but subscribes. It looks as if the 

 fair was a permanent institution. 



THE CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS. 



SO far the triumphs of modern civilization the world 

 over have been chiefly in the temperate zones. So 

 universally has this been true, that there has grown up a 

 feeling that industrial triumphs in tropical countries are 

 impossible. For this state of things the intense heat, dis- 

 ease, and more particularly the languid indifference to- 

 ward all progress said to possess both native and alien is 

 held to be responsible. As a matter of fact, however, 

 there is very little either of reason or common sense in 

 this view. That the warmer climes can produce sturdy, 

 dominant races is a matter of history. That the tropics 

 have been subdued by races that were at least semi civil- 

 ized is graphically attested by the ruins of great cities in 

 Central America. The real reason that the wonderful 

 products of the torrid zone have not been more fully ex- 

 ploited until now lies in the fact that the development of 

 the temperate zones used all of the energy of the pioneer 

 races of modern times. 



The scene is changing, however, and so rapidly that it 

 is almost impossible to keep pace with it. All over the 

 world the products of the hot countries are being more 

 and more exploited, and where they are agricultural, are 

 rapidly being brought under cultivation. In this work, 

 American knowledge and capital takes the lead. The 

 amount of money, for example, that is being put into 

 plantations and ranches, not to mention mines, in Mexico 

 and Central America runs into hundreds of millions. All 

 through those wonderfully fertile lands are plantations 

 owned and operated by Americans with American agricul- 

 tural machinery, fast displacing the antiquated methods of 

 the natives. In this progress, as indeed in all lines of in- 

 dustrial progress, India-rubber has its part. The day of 

 scoffing at the idea of cultivated rubber has gone by. 



That there will be disappointments and failures in fraudu- 

 lent and badly managed rubber plantation schemes no one 

 doubts, but that the cultivated rubber tree ten years hence 

 will be a productive and exceedingly profitable part of 

 many large plantations is an undisputed fact. 



This condition of things should be viewed with a great 

 deal of satisfaction by the ambitious Anglo-Saxon. The 

 most productive parts of the world, instead of growing up 

 in impenetrable jungles, the home of reptiles, and the 

 breeding place of poisonous insects, should lend their fer- 

 tility to the production of the many necessaries and lux- 

 uries that go to make civilized life tolerable. The won- 

 derful riches stored in the soil of the tropics are just as 

 much the heritage of the agriculturist as are the western 

 lands in the United States, that, under the plow of the 

 pioneer, bring forth such wonderful crops of wheat, and 

 corn. These lands are now more accessible than were the 

 farm lands of our west twenty years ago, and infinitely 

 more productive, and the same pioneer blood that de- 

 veloped the great farms of the west and northwest is to- 

 day helping to clear and plant the tropical fields of the ex- 

 treme south. 



Of course, one would not elect to start a plantation in 

 the steaming swamps of Brazil, where fevers are every 

 white man's lot, but there are tropical areas where fevers 

 are rare, where malaria is almost unknown, and where the 

 average of physical comfort is not far below that of new 

 settlements in the temperate zone. Within the life of an- 

 other generation it is probable, so swiftly do profitable 

 ventures move, that American capital will control Mexico, 

 and that the pioneer planters there will have done much 

 towards solving the problem of the cultivation of the rich 

 areas in Cuba and the Philippines, in which problem that 

 of growing India-rubber will take no inconsequent part. 



In connection with rubber in Bolivia, two items of 

 interest are chronicled in this issue of The India Rubher 

 World — the starting of a scientific expedition to study the 

 rubber yielding species in that country, and the reorganization 

 of the largest company yet formed to exploit the natural rubber 

 resources there. It will be observed that both the botanists 

 now on the way, and the rubber importing house interested in 

 the company referred to, are American. It may be recalled 

 here that the navigation of the river Beni.in the Bolivian rub- 

 ber center, dates from the explorations made by Dr. Heath, an 

 American. American enterprise is largel) interested in mining 

 in Bolivia, the development of which will open the way for 

 further undertakings in that country by American capital. It 

 long has been apparent that Bolivia possesses rich rubber re- 

 sources, and it would seem to be a natural field for develop- 

 ment for capital from the United States, since this country 

 ranks first in the consumption of rubber. By the way, the New 

 York Botanic Garden, which is interested in the scientific ex- 

 pedition sent lately to Bolivia, seems destined to becomeoneof 

 the great botanical institutions of the world, and the existing 

 stock of knowledge in relation to rubber species, not only in 

 Bolivia but elsewhere, doubtless will become enhanced to an 

 important extent by its work. One other fact in relation to 

 the interests of the United States in rubber is recorded in our 

 pages this month — the despatching of an expedition from 

 Washington to study the rubber resources of the Amazon basin. 



