124 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



(January i, 1910. 



BANANA 

 RUBBER. 



Some correspondence in the India-Rubber Journal has vested 

 this topic with rather more importance than I had been inclined 

 previously to credit it with, though the 

 able botanist who presides over the des- 

 tinies of the journal is not inclined to 

 be so optimistic as his correspondent. Some years ago the 

 subject of banana rubber came prominently before me in connec- 

 tion with a secret process of getting rich quickly, but though I 

 knew nothing really against banana rubber at the time, I was 

 quite certain that the samples of rubber shown as having come 

 from that source had quite a different and unmistakable origin. 

 There was little doubt that trickery was at work in the case, 

 and the statement made by the inventor of the process to the 

 effect that rubber cannot be accurately analyzed did not cause 

 me to change the opinion I had formed. Of course the present 

 suggestion of banana rubber is not new, as Otto Zurcher of 

 Jamaica took out a British patent for Musa, or banana rubber, 

 a good many years ago. A friend of mine prominently connected 

 with the company shipping the fruit from Costa Rica to Eng- 

 land, was very incredulous about the plants yielding rubber, 

 though attempts had been made, he said, to utilize the fibers in 

 the paper manufacture. As the plants are felled after every 

 harvest, there is of course plenty of raw material available for 

 the recovery of by-products. With regard to the question gen- 

 erally, it is of course well known that numbers of plants yield 

 latex which contains rubber in small quantity, and Mr. Pearson 

 suggested in the first edition of his book that several shrubs in 

 Mexico were well worthy of examination as a source of rubber. 

 No doubt the guayule plant was in his mind, and since then 

 we have seen the large guayule rubber business established. In 

 cases of this sort, where the yield is not great and the quality 

 inferior, it is all a matter of the market prices for raw rubber 

 as to whether the business is likely to prove a success. The 

 present time, therefore, is opportune to bring such projects 

 before the capitalist — a fact which the so-called synthetic rubber 

 people have not failed to take advantage of. Of course when the 

 inevitable fall in rubber prices comes to pass it is more than 

 probable that new sources of supply which might be made to 

 yield a profit at present would prove unremunerative as invest- 

 ments; hence people with knowledge of the trade will not be in a 

 hurry to invest money in banana rubber schemes any more than 

 is the case at present with rubber from peat. 



In the closing months of the year fires occurred at the cable 

 works of Messrs. Johnson & Phillips, the well-known firm on the 

 Thames, and at the cable works of 

 miscellany. Messrs. Conolly Brothers, at Blackley, 



near Manchester, though in neither case 

 was the damage very extensive. Another fire which may be 

 mentioned broke out at the non-flammable celluloid works at 

 Dronfield, North Derbyshire, more damage being done to prop- 

 erty across the road than to the works themselves. As a fire 

 in such a factory is apt to cause mistrust as to the value of the 

 process worked it has been pointed out by the authorities that 

 the conflagration was limited to material which had not been 

 treated. I have not seen any of this non-flammable celluloid, 

 but I am sure that there ought to be a good market for such 

 a material. 



In the matter of the new lease of life of the Scottish Vulcanite 

 Co., referred to already in The India Rubber World, a company 

 having been formed by Mr. Black, late of the North of Scotland 

 Rubber Co., it is satisfactory to hear that many of the old staff 

 will be taken on again. 



Mr. Slazenger, the newly-appointed sheriff for the City of 

 London, is a member of the firm which is so widely known in 

 connection with lawn tennis balls. He has also another link with 

 the rubber trade in that he is a brother-in-law of Mr. Alderman 

 Frankenburg, of Salford, Manchester. 



British East Africa is now becoming the regular objective of 



wealthy sportsmen who are following in the wake of men like 

 Lords Hindlip and Delamere, who, in addition to big game 

 hunting have identified themselves with business interests in 

 the way of developing the agricultural resources. On the property 

 of the Hindlip Fawcus Estates, Limited, at Kahawa, Zuchi, 

 Rewera Hills, rubber planting has recently been started, the 

 trees selected being Manihot Glasiovii and M. dichotoma, the 

 locality being near the coast. The family name of Lord Hindlip 

 is Allsopp, the business with which the first holder of the title 

 was connected not needing any particularization. Mr. W. P. J. 

 Fawcus, who died recently, was for some years prominently con- 

 nected with the Messrs. W. T. Glover Co., Limited, the cable 

 manufacturers, and his son is now the local representative on 

 the estates. 



'CASTILLOA" YIELDS IN CENTRAL AMERICA. 



\Y7HILE considerable interest in rubber has been manifested 

 * * in Jamaica, and a good deal of planting has been done on 

 that island, the editor of the Journal of the Jamaica Agricultural 

 Society points out in the October, 1909, issue that no organized 

 tests for tapping results have been made there, in consequence of 

 which opinion is still divided as to the practicability of rubber 

 culture. They have gone on analogy — their lands bear other 

 tropical products as well as any other part of the world, and 

 why not rubber? This is the basis of such rubber enterprise as 

 now exists. 



The Journal prints in this connection a very interesting report 

 from William Cradwick, of the colonial department of agricul- 

 ture, on the tapping of a Castilloa rubber tree 14 years old, 

 from seed imported from Costa Rica. Tapped by the Bowman- 

 Northway method, introduced from Ceylon, the scoring On a 

 modification of the herring bone system gave 1 pound of rubber; 

 the spur used four days later gave a further yield of 5 ounces. 

 This tree will be tapped once a month so long as it continues to 

 yield. The tree is 49 inches in girth, three feet from the ground. 

 Other Castilloa trees on the same estate are being tapped once 

 a week and once a fortnight, so that observations may be kept 

 as to the effect of tapping this species. 



In the same issue of the Journal a Costa Rica correspondent 

 discusses the difference between two varieties of native Castilloa 

 in that republic, apparently alike to the uninitiated, but readily 

 distinguished by the rubber gatherers. He says that a number 

 of trees taken at random from the first group that he met in a 

 forest, and apparently of the same age, when tapped rather 

 crudely with the machete gave results as follows ; one class 

 yielded an average of 53 ounces of dry rubber and the other 

 only 9.4 ounces. One tree of the better sort gave 76 ounces, 

 and one of the other only 3 ounces. The age of the trees which 

 he tapped is not even estimated, but they all bore signs of having 

 been tapped before. The point of the correspondent's letter is 

 that planters of Castilloa should be careful to secure the species 

 or variety which is most productive. 



The Mr. Cradwick already mentioned wrote in a recent report : 

 '"1 am much more favorably impressed with Castilloa than I 

 was, as in spite of a tree being attacked here and there by 

 scale insects and a kind of dieback caused by a fungus growth, 

 the majority of the trees grow rapidly and are free from troubles. 

 They break off in hurricanes rather than blow out of the ground, 

 and the breaking off apparently does not do them the slightest 

 harm ; in fact, I think it would be very advisable to top the trees at 

 about 10 or 12 feet from the ground, as in this case the base of 

 the stem would be thickened and strengthened, and high winds 

 would then simply have the effect of breaking off the top growths 

 without injuring the main stem of the tree at all." 



"Tires and All About Them," for everybody who has to do 

 with rubber tires, for business or pleasure. 



