168 



THE INDIA RUBBER AA^ORLD 



[March i, 1902. 



however, learned to appreciate this more and more, the 

 result being that a drop in crude rubber no longer induces 

 disastrous price cutting in rubber goods as it once did. 



RUBBER AND D'ORDIARDl'S THEORY. 



'T'HERE appeared in Pearsons magazine for March an 

 ■*• exceedingly interesting article on " The New Elixir 

 of Tife" discovered by Professor D'Ordiardi, a well known 

 professor of electricity in a West of Tondon hospital. It 

 will be remembered that the learned professor, in con- 

 junction with Professor Virchow, at the great medical con- 

 gress in St. Petersburg, proved beyond all doubt that there 

 was only one kind of disease and that was cell disease. It 

 was then forecasted that the way to cure disease of cells 

 and build new cells was to supply them with a vital force, 

 presumably electricity. Professor D'Ordiardi has, there- 

 fore, invented various static machines for different sorts 

 of cell building and has effected some marvelous cures. 

 So much for this part of his work. The theory that he 

 defines, however, to counteract the loss of electricity 

 through sudden shock and unfortunate surroundings 

 should be of interest to the rubber trade. Certain simple 

 instruments that he has designed will show to the indi- 

 vidual whether the office, countingroom, or bedroom is 

 one that is so situated as to drain the electrical energy 

 from whoever inhabits it. Once proved it is of course ex- 

 ceedingly easy to insulate a whole room or any of the fur- 

 niture, or for that matter, the man himself. If Professor 

 D'Ordiardi's theories be proved, there is no doubt that 

 the use of chair tips of rubber, and of rubber soled shoes 

 is a definite advantage. Indeed, it is quite possible that 

 the time may come when not only chairs, but couches and 

 beds will be set on blocks of rubber, and perhaps houses, 

 office buildings, and hotels will have an insulating expert 

 as one of the board of architects employed on the build- 

 ing. That there may be a definite need for something of 

 this kind is wholly within the bounds of reason. The 

 city and town dwellers to-day have such distinctively arti- 

 ficial surroundings, and there are such enormous wastes in 

 the matter of nerve force, that it is time that science came 

 to the aid of man, in not only measuring such wastes, but 

 in counteracting them. 



THE COST OF PLANTING RUBBER. 



MANY inquiries are made as to the cost per acre of plant- 

 ing rubber trees, which work, to the uninitiated, doubt- 

 less seems a very simple matter. But it is evident, from the 

 printed reports of some of the large plantation companies, that 

 the mere setting out of the young seedlings must represent but 

 a small part of the work necessary in forming a plantation on 

 land just reclaimed from the native forest. Before there can 

 be any planting must come the establishment of a community 

 of laborers— which does not, of course, exist in a forest covered 

 region. The work' of clearing is no small matter, and this is 

 followed by the planting, continued probably through several 

 years, with simultaneous care of the trees already set out. It 

 seems to be the part of economy to produce on the plantation, 

 as far as possible, crops necessary for the subsistence of the 



men and animals employed, and not a few companies are en- 

 gaged also in the cultivation of " side crops " for market, 

 such as will yield an income while the rubber trees are reach- 

 ing a productive age. 



On one plantation in Mexico, a report on which has reached 

 us, although the greater part ol the projected rubber planting 

 remains to be done, a village has grown up, with a population 

 varying from 250 to 500, a municipality has been organized and 

 a postoffice established. There is a company store, carrying 

 a stock of goods valued at $10,000 Mexican ; a meat market, 

 blacksmith shop, laundry, saw mill, brick-making plant, and 

 lime kiln ; and also a school for the children on the plantation 

 and a salaried plantation physician. There is even a police 

 force — paid for, like everything else mentioned above, by the 

 company. It is only by making an outlay for these various 

 purposes that a supply of labor can be insured for the coming 

 years of development which must precede the first yield of cul- 

 tivated rubber from this plantation. There must be labor for 

 constructing buildings, laying out roads, building numerous 

 small bridges, and for planting the various quick producing 

 crops — all of which work is carried on while other laborers are 

 clearing land, making rubber nurseries, and transplanting rub- 

 ber seedlings and caring for them for the first few years. More- 

 over, some outlay is often necessary for creating means of 

 transportation to the nearest railway or seaport. 



Of course the plantation referred to is one of the larger en- 

 terprises of this class in Mexico ; but even on the small private 

 plantations the owner does not calculate to plant or live by 

 rubber alone. There are, on the small as well as the large 

 estates, many items of outlay beyond the mere setting out of 

 rubber trees, so that the prospective planter who confines his 

 estimates to this one feature alone will likely be doomed to 

 early disappointment. All of which would indicate that the 

 question so often heard, as to the cost per acre of " planting 

 rubber," is much easier asked than answered. 



" Kindly inform me who ma 

 asks an ingenuous corresponden 

 the same intelligence as He who 

 ton ; in other words, the Creator 

 and no man has as yet been able 

 fully counterfeit it. The form in 

 cates a lack of knowledge of even 

 ufacture, and as it comes from a 

 knowledge it merits this answer. 



KES RUBBER IN MY VICINITY," 



t. The maker of rubber is 

 makes corn, wheat, and cot- 

 . Rubber is a natural product 

 to make it, or even success- 

 which the query is put indi- 

 the rudiments of rubber man- 

 source that presupposes such 



The life story of the Japanese pioneer in the manu- 

 facture of insulated wire, Mr. Zenpachi Fujikura, that ap- 

 pears in another column, is worth more than passing notice. 

 A change of name and locality would make it the biography 

 of the best type of self made American. Energy, ambition, hon- 

 esty, ability, and rare charity, all are shown in the simple story. 

 Mr. Fujikura was a credit to the great industry in which he 

 spent the best years of his life. 



Apropos of a crude rubber trust, the very place to or- 

 ganize one ought to be up the Congo river — at the very start- 

 ing point of rubber production, and beyond the reach of laws 

 to compel "publicity." The London Z'a//>' il/azV reports that 

 the Belgian trading companies on the Kassai, whose competi- 

 tion has raised the buying prices considerably, have formed a 

 trust to keep the prices down. 



The FEBRUARY weather couldn't have been better for 

 selling " rubbers " if the manufacturers had had the ordering 

 of it. 



