October 1, 1911.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



tax upon wet rubber, it would soon come into port partly 

 dry. Such a plan worked in the Philippines, and if there 

 wh\- not everywhere? 



"CASTILLOA" COMING INTO ITS OWN. 



/~^ lERLINGS' method for extracting the latex of the 

 Castilloa which has been adopted by planters in 

 Java, appears to be a distinct advance over those in gen- 

 eral use. Half a pound from 8 and 9 year old trees, with 

 a cost of, say, 25 cents and a market price for the product 

 of at least $1 should encourage all Castilloa growers. 



SECRETS IN RUBBER MANUFACTURE. 



It is often remarked that today there are no secrets 

 in rubber manufacture. The policy of the open 

 door that the greatest and most progressive factories 

 have long pursued, the constant interchange of ideas 

 among foreign and domestic managers and superin- 

 tendents, their visits one with another and their in- 

 spection of each other's plants would lead one to as- 

 sume that there could be no private processes, no spe- 

 cial machines — in a word, no secrets. 



A letter of protest from the head of the chemists' 

 club regarding the lack of information given out by 

 rubber chemists, however, would lead one to infer that 

 some things were still concealed. A careful analysis 

 of papers read by factory managers or chemists at any 

 of the great rubber conventions also reveals a striking 

 absence of new discoveries, novel theories or revolu- 

 tionary processes. It is, therefore, to be assumed that 

 there are still rubber secrets. Indeed, the whole busi- 

 ness of rubber manufacture so lends itself to individual 

 discovery in a thousand different ways that it always 

 has been and always will be a semi-secret industry. 



As far as the world at large is concerned, it is wholly 

 secret. The eminent novelist who pictures natives in 

 Africa torturing a man by coating his hands with 

 "boiling rubber" is typical of the distance the average 

 man penetrates into rubber knowledge. 



The manufacturers themselves, of course, have the 

 basic facts of compounding, making up, and vulcaniza- 

 tion in common. Beyond that, they become more or 

 less individual in practice and often get exceedingly 

 far apart. Here, therefore, is a fruitful field for secrets. 

 For example, a manufacturer of conveyor belting for a 

 specially hard service, experimented for two years to 



get a cnmpound that would last the longest. By an 

 amalgum of three kinds of crude rubber, by incorpo- 

 rating several ingredients in just the right proportion, 

 and with a cure exactly fitted to the compound, he se- 

 cured a result that w'as far ahead of what any other in 

 the series could produce. He not only adopted this 

 for his belts, but naturally guarded it very carefully. 

 A visiting brother manufacturer, although he stayed in 

 the factory for a week, would have no knowledge of 

 this compound. This is but one instance ; there are 

 thousands of others, big and little. They enter into 

 cleansing, massing, compounding, calendering, mak- 

 ing up, curing and finishing. Special secrets are in the 

 possession of owners, chemists, managers, superin- 

 tendents and foremen. Some are known to one only; 

 others to half a dozen ; still others to some branch of 

 the trade, and so on. As the business grows, the old 

 time secrets become generally known in factories here 

 and abroad ; but so varied are the crude rubbers, and 

 the compounding ingredients, so many users demand 

 their own type of rubber product, that fresh secrets 

 take their places. It is, therefore, no exaggeration to 

 state that in matters vital the business of rubber manu- 

 facture is today even more of a secret industry than 

 it was twenty years ago. That is why it does not 

 profit those in the lead to take the whole even of the 

 technical world into their confidence. 



RETAILERS WANT LOWER SHOE PRICES. 



A LOCAL paper reporting the convention recently 

 held in Cincinnati, by the Ohio Retail Shoe 

 Dealers' Association, quotes the attitude of that con- 

 vention as follows: "The price of rubber has de- 

 creased ; but there has been no decline in the price of 

 rubber shoes — and we want lower prices." There is 

 nothing reprehensible in this attitude of the retail 

 shoe dealers ; the desire for lower prices is a fairly 

 universal one. Everybody feels it in almost every 

 line, and gives more or less frequent and vociferous 

 expression to the feeling; but in this particular case 

 is the demand well founded? The members of the con- 

 vention reason as follows : "A year and a half ago 

 crude rubber was selling for $3 a pound. Now it is 

 selling for $1.15 a pound — a drop of 60 per cent. Why 

 don't shoes drop?" On the face of it they seem to 

 have the logic with them; but the trouble is they are 

 reasoning without the essential facts. It is true that 

 eighteen months ago rubber sold as high as $3 a 



