100 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[November 1, 1913. 



Some Rubber Planting Notes. 



THE BOTANIC GAHDENS OF SINGAPORE AND PENANG. 



IX the last annual report on the Botanic Gardens at Singapore 

 and Penang — Straits Settlements — a paragraph devoted to 

 "The Economical Garden," records the loss of Para rubber 

 trees by wind and states that the condition interfered also with 

 tapping experiments, the total yield for the year 1912 having 

 amounted to 2,484 pounds, a slight advance over that of 1911, but 

 about 400 pounds short of the 1910 production. It contains also 

 the information that the demand for seed and seedlings absorbed 

 the entire available supply of the former and nearly the whole of 

 the latter. 395,300 seeds and 9,550 seedlings having been distributed 

 during the year, the revenue from their sale amounting to $3.4.^6, 

 and from the sale of rubber to $4,520. The Penang report men- 

 tions a yield of )3'A pounds for the year from a 27 year old 

 Para tree, this figure representing its ma.ximum yearly yield to 

 date. This tree has been tapped continually since 1895 and during 

 that period has produced slightly over 85 pounds of dry rubber. 

 Since publication of the previous report, Mr. I. H. Burkill has 

 been appointed Director of Gardens, succeeding Mr. H. N. Ridley, 

 under whose direction they were formerly conducted. 



VALLAMBEOSA KUBBEE CO., LIMITED. 



For the five months ending August 31. the amount of 

 rubber harvested on Vallambrosa Estate was 184,000 pounds, 

 compared with 174,300 pounds for the same period in 1912. On 

 the Buki Kraiong Estate, the quantity harvested during the 

 same period was 43,100 pounds, compared with 27,700 pounds 

 for the same period last year. 



PHENOMENAL INCBEASE DT ETTBBEE EXPORTS. 



During the first seven months of the current year, there was 

 e.xported from the Federated Malay States, according to a re- 

 port made by United States Consul General Edwin S. Cunning- 

 ham, at Singapore, Straits Settlements, 12,265 tons of plantation 

 rubber, compared with 8,071 tons during the same period in 

 1912. The value of this year's exports of rubber is given by the 

 consul as $21,022,746, and it paid duty to the Federated Malay 

 States amounting to $524,567. 



SAPUMALKANDE RUBBEE CO., LIMITED. 



.^n Interim dividend of 4 per cent., equivalent to 9Hd. per 

 share, has been declared by the directors of the above company 

 for the year ending December 31, 1913. 



GOLDEN HOPE ETTBBEE ESTATE, LIMITED. 



The directors of the above company have declared an interim 

 dividend of 714 per cent., equivalent to Is. 6d. per share for the 

 year ending December 31, 1913. 



THE rEDEKATED MALAY STATES INSTALL DAVID BEIDGE 

 MACHINERY. 



The Department of Agriculture for the Federated Malay 

 States recently ordered a complete experimental rubber vul- 

 canizing plant from David Bridge & Co., Manchester, Eng- 

 land. This plant when finished will constitute one of the 

 most modern and best equipped laboratories for the testing 

 of rubber in a thoroughly practical way anywhere in exist- 

 ence. It will be housed in a building erected specially for 

 it and will include a vertical steam engine; a horizontal steam 

 engine; an improved washing mill; an improved mixing mill; 

 a three-bowl calender ; a hydraulic vulcanizing press ; an 

 "Autoclave" press or combined hydraulic press and vulcanizing 

 pan ; a da Costa coagulator ; a vacuum drying plant, a com- 

 bined smoking and drying apparatus; Schopper, Schwartz and 

 Martens machines for testing physical qualities of rubber, and 

 a Breuil elastodurameter. 



INCREASED EUBBER ACREAGE IN JAVA AND STTMATRA. 



According to reports from British consular officials in that 

 section, the acreage devoted to the cultivation of rubber in Java 

 and Sumatra, as well as the output of that product, is steadily 

 increasing. According to one report, the exports during 1912 

 were 100 per cent, larger than for the preceding year and con- 

 sisted chiefly of Fictts and Hevca rubber, only small exports of 

 Castilloa and Ceara being reported. The area planted to rub- 

 ber at the end of 1912, as near as could be ascertained by the 

 British vice-consul for the district of Medan, was 208,000 acres. 



COFFEE vs. TEA AS A CATCH CROP WITH RUBBEE. 



While "rubber cum tea" has engaged to a large extent the 

 attention of planters in Ceylon, in Sumatra it is "rubber cum 

 coffee" that constitutes their favorite crop, and, already con- 

 cerned at the encroachment by Far Eastern planters on their 

 rubber business, planters in Brazil are now beginning to 

 recognize in the Far East a possible rival in the coffee market. 

 The fact that in the Dutch East Indies, in Sumatra particu- 

 larly, rubber planters were reported as finding large profits 

 in the cultivation of "Robusta" coffee, as a catch crop with 

 rubber, induced the government of the Brazilian province of 

 Sao Paulo to dispatch a commissioner to the East, for the 

 purpose of learning how much truth there was in the state- 

 ment. Dr. Xavarro, the envoy in question, has recently 

 returned from his mission and his report is calculated to give 

 comfort alike to cofifee and rubber growers. 



It appears that the growing of cofifee, as a catch crop with 

 rubber, has not proved profitable, the coflee developing at 

 the expense of the rubber; and its culture has consequently 

 been in large part abandoned, especially by English-owned 

 plantations. The extent to which the Dutch planters in 

 Sumatra have taken up coffee growing may be gathered from 

 the fact that the Brazilian commissioner visited one planta- 

 tion on which there were 180.000 rubber trees and 1.159,000 

 coffee plants; another had 68.820 rubber trees and 547.000 

 coffee plants. In every instance the "Robusta" was the 

 variety of coffee favored. 



A steady falling oflF, for several years, in the volume of 

 coffee shipped, would indicate that the coffee plants were 

 being gradually eliminated by Dutch East India growers, 

 who are returning to the production of rubber exclusively as 

 a commodity more stable alike in demand and in price. 



REDUCED SHIPMENTS OF PARA RUBBER. 



That the efifects of the present low prices of rubber are mak- 

 ing themselves felt in producing circles is indicated by a recent 

 report made by George H. Pickerell, United States Consul at 

 Para, on the decline in Brazilian rubber shipments. The consul 

 embodies in his report a table showing the shipments of rub- 

 ber to the United States from the ports of Para, Manaos, Iquitos 

 and Itacoatira during July, 1913, the first month of the 1913- 

 1914 rubber season, to have been 4,189.454 pounds, as compared 

 with 5.627,602 pounds for the corresponding month of 1912. 

 .•\ccording to the consul, the falling off is due to a refusal on 

 the part of many producers to send down their supplies, because 

 at current quotations their receipts would not cover the ad- 

 vances made to the workers during the season. This confirms 

 a staternent made in connection with the review of the crude 

 rubber market in the October issue of this paper. 



Should be on every rubber man's desk — Crude Rubber and 

 Compounding Ingredients : Rubber Country of the .•\mazon ; 

 Rubber Trade Directorv of the World. 



