( (CTOBER I. I909.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



Notes on Rubber Cultivation. 



PLANTED ACREAGE IN CEYLON AND MALAYA. 



THE current edition of the "Ceylon Handbook and Direc- 

 tory," compiled annually by The Ceylo)i Observer, esti- 

 mates the area under rubber in the colony, at the 

 middle of 1909, at 184,000 acres, against 180,000 acres one 

 year previously. From returns supplied by plantation man- 

 agers it appears that 131,800 acres are planted to rubber 

 alone; the additional acreage is arrived at by taking into ac- 

 count the rubber interplanted with 67,056 acres of tea and 

 18,698 acres of cacao, on the same basis of estimating em- 

 ployed in the past. In the "Handbook" for 1898 rubber 

 planting was represented by an estimate of 750 acres; by 

 May. 1901, they estimated 2,500 acres, wdiile the return to the 

 middle of 1904 gave an equivalent of 11,000 acres. Subse- 

 quently planting went on very rapidly until within a year, 

 since which a halt seems to have been made. The 131,800 

 acres planted to rubber exclusively, if assembled in one tract, 

 would cover just 206 square miles, affording a most striking 

 example of what can be done in the way of forming an arti- 

 ficial forest. 



Still larger is the acreage under cultivated rubber in the 

 Federated Malay States. The last report issued by Mr. J. B. 

 Carruthers, director of agriculture in the States, before tak- 

 ing leave for his new official position in Trinidad, gives the 

 planted area at 241,138, while the number of planted trees 

 is estimated at 37.500,000. The average yield per tapped tree 

 all over the Malay peninsula is stated to have increased from 



I pound 6 ounces in 1907 to 1 pound 15H ounces — a gain of 



II per cent. The average yield of tapped trees in the state 

 of Negri Sembilan was 3 pounds 2 ounces, without regard to 

 age. Some seventeen year old trees at Parit Buntar are men- 

 tioned as having given a yield of 285^ pounds in one year. 



"CASTILLOA" RUBBER BY THE CENTRIFUGAL PROCESS. 



The rubber delivered by the Lesber centrifugal machine, 

 now in use on La Zacualpa plantation, in Mexico, is in the 

 form of biscuits, which would readily be taken for typical fine 

 Para biscuits. When one of them is cut in two it shows a very 

 densely coagulated light colored surface, with a suggestion of 

 thin layers, such as are produced by the smoking process. The 

 rubber is very clean and tough, and the outside surface, where 

 it is exposed to the air, has a mahogany color instead of the 

 black that Castilloa so often acquires. 



LA ZACUALPA PLANTATION CO. NO. 2. 



This company, though incorporated under the laws of 

 California, is in a sense an English company. A consider- 

 able amount of its capital is held in Great Britain, and it 

 has a London director, Mr. Ashmore Russan. The two La 

 Zacualpa companies (No. 1 and No. 2) and one other are 

 the only three Mexican rubber plantation enterprises men- 

 tioned in tile "Rubber Share Handbook." which The Financier 

 and BnlHiinist has lately brought out. 



The first La Zacualpa Rubber Plantation Co. was incorporated 

 ten years ago — September 8, 1899 — when the cultivation of rubber 









IMPROVED DEVICES FOR USE IN CONNECTION WITH CASTILLOA RUBBER. 



I fust as the cultivatc.l He-eea has called for and developed certain types of tools for gathering rubber, so now as the producing stage is being 

 reached docs the Castilloa. One of the illustrations given herewith show a light 24-foot ladder that one man can handle, and. once placed, clasps 

 the trunk of the tree so that it cannot slip or fall. Another production is a rotary knife run by power that does excellent work. The motor shown 

 in the illustration is gasoline, but the plan is to have a little electric motor to do the work of driving the knife. The same inventive mind that has 

 produced the ladder and the power knife has also evolved two hand knives, one for the regular tapping, the other for opening hrst cuts. lhese 

 rs are supplied by ('.raves & Graves Co. (Boston), who are engaged in planting Castilloa rubber in Mexico.] 



