Ai'RH. I, IV14.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



2>Z7 





W-Pfl"^' 



Published on the 1st of each Month by 



THE INDIA RUBBER PUBLISHING GO 



No. 25 West 45th Street. New York. 

 CABLE ADDRESS: JRWORLD, NEW YORK. 



HENRY C. PEARSON, Editor 



Vol. 50. 



APRIL I, 1914. 



No. 1 



Subscriptions: $3.00 per year, $1.75 for six months, postpaid, for the 

 United States and dependencies and ■ Mexico. To the Dominion 

 of Canada and all other countries, $3.50 (or equivalent funds) 

 per year, postpaid. 



Advertising: Rates will be made known on application. 



Remittances: Should always be made by bank draft or Postoffice or 

 Express money order on New York, payable to The India Rubber 

 Publishing Company. Remittances for foreign subscriptions should 

 be sent by International Postal Order, payable as above. 



Discontinuances: Yearly orders for subscriptions and advertising are 

 regarded as permanent, and after the first twelve months they will 

 be discontinued only at the request of the subscriber or advertiser. 

 Bills are rendered promptly at the beginning of each period, and 

 thereby our patrons have due notice of continuance. 



COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE INDIA RUBBER PUBLISHING CO. 

 Entered at the New York postoffice as mail matter of the second class. 



TABLE OF contents ON LAST PAGE OF READING. 



THE AWAKENING ON THE AMAZON. 



Till'". rul>l)er industry of the .\niazon is not by any 

 means wiped out. Xor is it likely to be as long as 

 there are rubber trees by the millions only waiting to be 

 tapped. The trustees of this great industry have been 

 profligate and extravagant in the discharge of their obli- 

 gations, with the result that their stewardship is at an end, 

 and the real owner.s — the people of Northern Brazil — are 

 at length fully aroused to the seriousness of the situation 

 and are standing shoulder to shoulder in determined effort 

 to save their heritage. 



That they have lived extravagantly in the past is no 

 reason to believe them unable to live economicalh- in the 

 future. In fact the i)ractice of rigid economies has already 

 begun. Under the old and now discarded system it cost 

 60 cents' worth of food to produce one pound of islands 

 rubber. Upriver sorts cost from 75 cents to $1 a pound. 

 W'ho knows how cliea])ly a pound (jf Para rubber can be 

 produced under the new order of things? It is a struggle 

 for existence by a people who are determined to live and 

 to preserve their rubber industry. The province of .\cre 

 is already spreading the gospel of economy, and .Ama- 

 zonia and Para are falling into line. The state and federal 



3 governments will be forced to reduce the burdensome 

 CD 



I 



taxes, and tlicti it will be seen, and no doubt with surprise, 

 how cheajjly Amazonian rubber can be produced. 



THE RESPONSIVENESS OF THE DUMP HEAP. 



""pllll ijhilo.sophical Duke in ".\s You Like It"' has been 

 ■■• much commended for his ability under trying circum- 

 stances to lind "btjoks in the rimning brooks, sermons in 

 stones and good in every thing" ; but, to employ a modern- 

 ism, he had nothing on the waste material dealer of today, 

 who finds vast riches in tin cans, millions in worn-out 

 and cast oft goloshes and wealth in everv dump heap. 

 .Vn interesting event occurred about the middle of 

 March, when the National Association of Waste Material 

 Dealers met in New York for their first annual dinner. 

 There were several excellent addresses emphasizing the 

 great development of the industry with which they were 

 associated, while tlie chief speaker of the evening — Mr. 

 Curtis Guild, of Boston, ex-Governor and ex-Ambassador 

 — paid the assembled dealers the compliment of appearing 

 before them with a carefully prepared and scholarly dis- 

 sertation giving a comprehensive and historic survey of 

 the whole conservation industry. The occasion and the 

 character of the speeches, the statistics quoted and facts 

 recited, proved what an important position the gathering 

 of waste materials had attained among recognized indus- 

 tries — in other words, showed the colossal size and 

 amazing richness of the national rubbish heap. The 

 whole subject is one of profound interest to the student 

 of economics, but the reclaiming of rubber waste naturally 

 calls for the greater attention in these columns. 



The statistics of waste rubber collection are, necessarily 

 from the nature of the enterprise, a little vague, but it 

 probably is a conservative statement to say that, taking 

 the world over, 275,000 tons of scrap rubber is collected 

 during the year. We have imported during the last two 

 or three years about 20,000 tons of this material annually, 

 and have probably collected 125,000 tons of our own, 

 giving our reclaimers something like 145,000 tons a year 

 as material for their operations. This results in a product 

 of reclaimed rubber in this country of approximatelv 

 85,000 tons. As we use in the neighborhood of 50,000 

 tons of new rubber, it will be seen that the dump heap 

 contributes 70 per cent, more material for our manufac- 

 turing plants than the Valley of the Amazon and the 

 Eastern plantations combined. It probably would be a con- 

 servative estimate to place the value of the waste rubber 

 collected in this country in a year — based on an average 

 nf 7 cents a pound— at $17,500,000; and it would be safe 

 to say that the value of the annual reclaimed product^ 



