November 1, 1913.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



99 



RUBBER PLANTATIONS IN DUTCH GUIANA. 



A RUBBER PLANTER LEAVES WEST AFRICA FOR 

 SOUTH AMERICA. 



(Extract from Recent Correspondence.) 



' I "HE plantation "Niew Clarenbeek'' changed owners early in the 

 year. The lucky purchasers are members of an American firm 

 with headquarters at Chicago. This property is very extensive, 

 and all the trees arc now ready for the tapping knife. Great 

 returns are ^expected •'from this estatf., and the new owners are 

 to be congratulated for their foresiglit in selecting and acquiring 

 such a modern rubber plantation. The manager of the corpo- 

 ration — the Dutch Guiana Culture Co. — visited the colony, and 

 remained for several months on the estate, making all the neces- 

 sary improvements and arrangements preliminary to starting 

 operations. He returned to Chicago some weeks ago, and before 

 his departure openly expressed his entire satisfaction with his 

 company's investment and with the colony in general. Niew 

 Clarenbeek is one of the best rubber estates in the colony and 

 will be producing largely in the near future. 



Several other plantations have been doing well also, and there 

 is no doubt that in the course of a very short time the exports 

 of rubber will compare favorably with other producing lands. 

 Had the planters of Surinam, however, given more attention to 

 cultivation of Para rubber some IS or 20 years ago, today 

 Dutch Guiana would have stood high in exports and would 

 have rivaled many of the large producing countries. As it is 

 our rubber exports only began in l9ll, and from that time to 

 August 31 of the present year, according to government statis- 

 tics, about 4,327 kilograms (9,519 pounds) have been exported. 

 The present low prices of the product have also had a bad effect 

 on this year's production, for many of the plantation proprietors 

 have discontinued tapping operations pending a more lucrative 

 price. This will materially lessen the exports — which were ex- 

 pected to be high — for 1913. 



RUBBER VINES TO BE GROWN IN THE BAHAMAS. 



A REPORT made by United States Consul Henry D. Baker, 

 ■** recently on special duty in India, states that an attempt is to 

 be made to cultivate a rubber producing vine, Cryptostegia grandi 

 flora, in the Bahamas on a large scale, thus realizing an idea, 

 long entertained that these fertile islands could be made an 

 important source of rubber. 



The enterprise will be financed and managed, according to 

 the report, by a syndicate having headquarters in Boston, Mas- 

 sachusetts, with a capital of $500,000; and a tract of upwards of 

 1,000 acres of land has been acquired near Nassau, N. P. The 

 shoots, of which about 5.000 will be set out to the acre, are 

 said to make rapid growth, attaining in six months a length of 

 12 to 30 feet. The vine will be cut at twelve months and 

 each plant is expected to yield about 2 pounds of shrub, from 

 which. 2 per cent, of rubber can be extracted. This is equivalent 

 to about 200 pounds of rubber to the acre. 



In addition to rubber, the plant furnishes, as a by-product, a 

 valuable fibre that can be spun and woven into an excellent 

 fabric. The woody substance, when worked out, is said to 

 yield a cellulose that can be profitably used in paper making. 



The process of extracting the rubber is a destriictive one, the 

 plant being crushed or ground up after the manner of the sugar 

 cane and the juice extracted treated by a secret process to obtain 

 the rubber which the report describes as worth, in the London 

 market, within 8 cents per pound of the price of the best 

 quality Para. 



A MOXG the interesting rubber men from abroad who have 

 **• recently visited New York is Mr. Lachlan A. Campbell, of 

 London, who has spent the last ten years in the rubber country 

 of West Africa, acting for the greater part of that time as 

 manager of rubber planting enterprises. In his opinion, planta- 

 tions in South America offer greater promise than those of 

 West Africa, and he is planning to transfer his activities to 

 the country along the Amazon. 



Mr. Campbell speaks of the disadvantages under which the 

 West African rubber trade is now being carried on, chiefly be- 

 cause of the fact that two-thirds of the Landolphia vines — 

 which have been the principal source of African rubber — have 

 been destroyed by the natives in their anxiety to get the utmost 

 rubber in the briefest space of time. Rubber gathering in that 

 section began 25 years ago, and up to quite recently the native 

 process has been to girdle the vines with a deep incision and 

 at frequent intervals, or in some cases — where the vines were 

 small and susceptible of such treatment — to cut them off at the 

 roots and crush them in a macerating machine ; both processes 

 being absolutely destructive to the vine. Mr. Campbell's opera- 

 tions have been chiefly confined to Southern Nigeria, near the 

 Cross river ; and in that section, and in fact through western 

 Africa generally, the natives are now being taught a better 

 system of tapping, which extracts the latex but does not destroy 

 the vine. But the injury already done is irreparable. 



Plantation enterprises in southern Nigeria have not as yet 

 been very successful, but there are several plantations in the 

 Gold Coast country— particularly in the vicinity of Axim — 

 where some thousand acres have been planted to Hevea, which 

 are quite promising. These Hevca experiments hjve been 

 carried on during the last three years and seem to assure better 

 results than the previous Fitntumia experiments. Botanists have 

 generally classified the Funtumia clastica as being the same as 

 the Kick.xia Africana, but Mr. Campbell thinks they are wrong 

 in this matter and that tho closely related they are not t'le 

 same tree. Kickxia is indigenous to West Africa, but, in his 

 opinion, Funtumia is not a native of that country. 



In addition to the great destruction of the Landolphia vine 

 there is another reason for the falling off of wild rubber ship- 

 ments from West Africa— and that is the fact that the natives 

 find an easier method of livelihood in planting the cocoa tree, 

 which can be planted with very little clearing, is easy to care 

 for, and the pods of which are picked and dried with com- 

 paratively little work. A great many of them have abandoned 

 rubber gathering and also the cultivation of the oil palms for 

 the raising of cocoa trees. 



Mr. Campbell believes that the Congo atrocities arc absolutely 

 a thing of the past, but he says there is no doubt that they 

 existed under Leopold's administration and that the stories of 

 horrible mutilations that came from that country at that time 

 were in no way exaggerated. 



AMEKICAU RUBBER ROOFING IN TRIPOLI. 



Imports from America to Tripoli for 1912 amounted to 

 $510,486 and included rubber roofing to the value of $2,000. 



OUR TRADE WITH MEXICO. 



Of a total decrease of $9,488,236, in the foreign trade of Mexico 

 for the year that ended June 30, 1912, $7,797,755 of this total rep- 

 resented the falling off in commerce between that country and 

 the United States, divided between imports and exports in the 

 amounts of $7,360,656 and $437,099, respectively. Mexico's total 

 foreign trade for the year reached $240,325,720. the imports into 

 the country amounting to $91,331,155, of which $49,212,836 worth 

 were from the United States, $448,502 of that amount represent- 

 ing manufactures of rubber. The total value of the exports from 

 that country for the year was $148,994,564, the United States 

 taking $112,729,956 of these exports, of which $10,896,373 repre- 

 sented rubber, guayule and a small proportion of chicle. 



