June i, 1910.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



311 



Berlin-Frankfurter Gummiwaren-Fabriken, who is on the 

 board of Kautschuk-Pflanzung "Meanja" Actiengesellschaft. 

 Actively interested in the development of rubber planting, 

 as well as in the exploitation of forest rubber in German 

 colonial possessions, is Dr. Otto Warburg, the chief editor of 

 Der Tropenpftanzer, published by the Kolonial-Wirtschaftlichen 

 Komitee, and connected with the royal botanical gardens at 

 Berlin. 



QUALITY OF RUBBER AND THE AGE OF TREES. 



According to the Malay Mail, Mr. Davis, manager of the 

 General Rubber Co., of New York, has informed Mr. Maurice 

 Maud, manager of the Cicely Rubber Estates Co., Limited (Fed- 

 erated Malay States), that, according to his investigations, there 

 is scarcely any difference in the quality of rubber extracted 

 from trees 4V2, 5, 9, 10, 17, and 27 years old. It appears, there- 

 fore, that the age of the trees, at least as far as the Hevea is 

 concerned, is by no means a factor of such importance as it was 

 hithertofore considered to be. — Der TropenpAanzer. 



The subject of the age at which Hevea trees become tappable 

 is treated in a recent publication, "The A B C of Rubber Plant- 

 ing Companies in Malaya," by M. Sidney Parry, who writes : 



"It is now becoming a universal practice to commence tapping 

 when trees are 4 years old. And experiments made over large 

 areas during the last two years have proved conclusively that 

 trees are not harmed by being lightly tapped when they are 



4 years, or even 354 years old, always provided that the girth 

 at 3 feet from the ground is, say, 16 inches, and we have learned 

 this from practical experience." 



RUBBER PLANTING IN JAVA. 



There appears in a recent number of The Ceylon Observer an 

 interview with M. Jacob, a director in a company owning a 

 large rubber plantation in Java. He reports that there is 

 very little Hevea rubber in Java over 4 years of age, but that 

 trees at 4 year? have reached a girth of 23 inches 3 feet from 

 the ground, and that tapping is being commenced at this age. 

 He says that as a rule planted rubber trees in Java 4 years 

 old are as well advanced as at 5 or even sH years in Ceylon. 

 The greatest amount of capital put into rubber in Java thus 

 far has been Belgian. Among recent visitors to the Dutch 

 East Indies was M. Grisar, of Antwerp, important in the 

 crude rubber trade there, who, it is understood, was plan- 

 ning to float a new rubber planting company on arriving at 

 home. 



"CASTILLOA" RUBBER IN CHIAPAS (MEXICO). 



To the Editor of The India Rubber World: In view of the 

 fact that your valued journal has given particular attention to 

 the progress of rubber growing and results attained therefrom, 

 I take pleasure in acquainting you with the results obtained on 

 our plantation in Mexico for the first tapping season, just closed. 

 While something in the way of reports on the tapping of special 

 trees has been published, by the plantations in our district, lying 

 along the Tulija river in the department of Palenque, I am not 

 aware that any report has ever been made covering extended 

 tapping operations, taking all the trees as they stand in a given 

 area, tapped by the native laborer, which must manifestly be the 

 only basis on which results can be figured as yet. 



Due to excessive rains, our tapping operations were not entirely 

 completed on all of the trees, but so far as completed a total 

 number of 9,987 were lightly tapped, by the full herring bone 

 method, first on one side, later on the other side, the cuts about 

 18 inches apart as high as a man could reach. Later some of the 

 trees were again tapped above the first tappings. Of the trees 

 tapped, 25 per cent, were four years old, 60 per cent, five years 

 old, and 15 per cent, six years old. The total yield was 1.550 

 pounds, or an average of 2.483 ounces per tree. The six-year-old 

 trees yielded from 4 to 6 ounces, or an approximate average of 



5 ounces per tree. 



Tapping was commenced the latter part of September, 1909, 



and closed about the middle of March, 1910. The total cost per 

 pound of this small lot of rubber, laid down in New York, 

 approximates 28 cents, which will be materially reduced as the 

 production increases. Recent experiments made on the first 

 trees tapped demonstrate that they could again be tapped at 

 the present time with no apparent diminution of the flow of 

 latex. The work was done with a special knife devised by our 

 manager, by the use of which the cuts heal up perfectly smooth, 

 with no appreciable damage to the trees. j. b. sanborn, 



President [Orizaba Rubber Plantation Co.]. 

 Chicago, April 12, 1910. 



GOOD CEARA RUBBER. 



A small lot of Ceara, offered on the Colombo market on 

 April 19, was valued at 9.50 rupees [=$3.08] per pound. The 

 Ceylon Observer says : "This was very thin white biscuits, which, 

 being almost devoid of the usual bad smell of Ceara, and the 

 characteristic 'powdery white/ were almost indistinguishable, ex- 

 cept by the expert, from Para biscuits." The local price for the 

 finest Para crepe on the same date was 10 rupees [=$3.2454]. 



THUNDERATION IN A RUBBER DISTRICT. 



A severe thunderstorm, accompanied by very heavy rain, has 

 destroyed some thousand rubber trees on the Jebong estate, and 

 several other estates in the district have also suffered consid- 

 erably. — Times of Malaya (April 2). 



FORWARD SALES OF RUBBER. 



'T'HE forward sales of rubber under contract by a number of 

 x plantation companies, particularly in Ceylon, have been 

 reported from time to time in The India Rubber World. Most 

 of the forward sale contracts now in effect were made at prices 

 less than one-half of what have been realized lately at the London 

 auctions, in consequence of which there has been a natural 

 note of discontent among shareholders. 



Ceylon newspapers have contained not a few communications 

 from holders of planting shares asking what would happen if 

 rubber prices should "break" below the contract prices ; could 

 the buyers be held to their contracts? 



A Singapore paper has printed an editorial suggestion that 

 the forward sales on the part of some companies may have been 

 made with a view to a favorable effect upon the prices of shares 

 of the companies most nearly concerned. This idea, however, 

 seems not to have met a general adoption, and The India Rub- 

 ber World has seen no reason to suppose that any forward sale 

 has been made for any such purpose. 



An interesting feature of the proceedings at the fourth annual 

 meeting of The Consolidated Malay Rubber Estates, Limited 

 (London: April 27), was a speech by Mr. John Loudoun Shand, 

 a director and one of the secretaries of the company, in the 

 course of which he said : 



"When we met last year I congratulated you on our having 

 been able to declare a dividend of 17V2 per cent., which was 

 considerably more than we had expected to be able to pay, and 

 I think I have cause still more to congratulate you this year 

 on the directors being able to recommend a dividend for the 

 year of 80 per cent. I also mentioned last year that the average 

 net price that we had obtained for our rubber in the previous 

 year was 4s. 2d. per pound, and that we had begun the year well 

 by selling our first two or three consignments at an average 

 of SS. per pound. I hoped in my heart of hearts that we might 

 be able to maintain that average, though I did not feel very sure 

 of it; but none of us, in old wildest dreams, thought our average 

 price of 4s. 2d. per pound would be converted into a net average 

 of ys. 2d. this year. Many offers have been made to us from 

 rubber philanthropists in all parts of the world — from Colombo, 

 New York, and elsewhere — to place us in a comfortable position 

 by 'buying our crops in advance ; but so far we have refused 

 these philanthropic advances." [Hear, hear.] 



