December i, 1903.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



85 



in tea, with buildings and other improvements. The tea has 

 been neglected, but it is expected that a profit from it can be 

 realized up to 1910, when a profit can be derived from rubber 

 (Hevea). A small amount of rubber already planted has grown 

 well, and a new planting of 1500 acres is planned, the clearing 

 to be begun about December 1. Directors : Hon. J. N. Camp- 

 bell, Hon. W. H. Figg, and L. T. Bonstead (the vendor of the 

 Udugama property). Whittall & Co., Colombo, are the agents 

 and secretaries. 



THE CEYLON RUBBER CO., LIMITED. 

 This company was registered at Colombo September 18, 

 1903, to acquire or create plantations of rubber. The author- 

 ized capital is 750,000 rupees [=$243,325], in 7500 shares. The 

 first directors are F. L. Clements, Keith Rollo, and E. L. Grig- 

 son, the latter of George Steuart & Co., Colombo. The com- 

 pany have purchased 240 acres from the government in the 

 Avisawella district. An issue of 1000 shares of stock is an- 

 nounced. 



SAN PEDRO RUBBER PLANTATION CO. 



[ Amuy-Pa plantation, department of Palenque, state of Chiapas, Mexico. Office: 

 Uihlein building, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. See The India Rubber World, Febru- 

 ary 1, 1901 — page 154.] 



The committee of inspection of this plantation for the sec- 

 ond year consisted of H. J. Smith and H. W. Hill, whose re- 

 port is printed in 32 page pamphlet, more than half the space 

 being devoted to photographic views, as being likely to give a 

 better idea of the condition of work in progress than any 

 amount of written description. The second year's work is 

 stated to have embraced the clearing of 500 additional acres 

 and the planting of 1 000,000 rubber (Castilloa elastica) seeds. 

 This is the company headed by George W. Peck, former gov- 

 ernor of Wisconsin. 



SOLO-SUCHIL PLANTATION CO. 



[Plantation at Solo-Suchil, canton of Manatitlan, state of Vera Cruz. Mexico. 

 Office : 835 The Spitzer, Toledo, Ohio.J 



Incorporated November 3. 1902, under New York laws; 

 capital, $350,000. The company is a consolidation of three 

 plantation companies : (1) The OhioCoflfee Growing and Trad- 

 ing Co., of Toledo, Ohio, oiganized six or seven years ago; 

 (2) The Tres Rios Co., of Independence, Iowa ; and (3) The 

 Solo-Suchil Co., of Kansas City, Missouri. Their properties 

 being adjacent, important economies in management are ex- 

 pected to result from consolidation. The location is in the 

 " Dos Rios " region, fronting on the Solo Suchil river, which 

 is navigable to the port of Caatzacoalos, on the gulf. A state- 

 ment issued by the company gives the following details : 



Area Acres Planted Planted Coffee 



Plantations. Acres. Imp'ved. Rubber. Coffee. Bearing. 



Toledo 400 550 qo 460 460 



Tres Rios 1040 475 275 200 50 



Solo-Suchil 575 too 75 100 100 



Total 2515 1125 440 760 610 



The total number of rubber trees planted to date is 264.000, 

 which number will be reduced by thinning. The number of 

 coffee trees is 408,120, of which a large proportion have come 

 into bearing, so that the company already has an income from 

 its plantation. Additional planting is planned, with a view to 

 having a permanent stand of 300,000 rubber and 500,000 

 coffee trees. The company offer a certain amount of treasury 

 securities to provide means for the new planting. The officers 

 are: Henry Neel, president; Clark L. Cole, vice president; 

 Henry F. Bleimeister, secretary and treasurer. The plantation 

 manager is R. O. Price, who has had ten years of experience 

 in planting on the isthmus of Tehuantepec. The names of 

 two of the other directors— Harry W. Bennett and Squire 

 Garnsey — are widely known in connection with Mexican rub- 

 ber planting. 



THE SOUTHERN RUBBER PLANTATION CO., LIMITED. 



[Offices : Tulane-Newcombe building. New Orleans, Louisiana.] 



Incorporated in July, 1903, under Louisiana laws, with $1,- 

 000,000 capital authorized, to establish a plantation of tropical 

 products, including India-rubber, at Monte Christo, state of 

 Chiapas, Mexico. Albert Mackie is president, A. R. Blakely 

 vice president, P. H. Schniedau treasurer, and Harry C. Wilde- 

 sen secretary. John Elsee and John C. Roberson are also di- 

 rectors, the former being plantation manager and the latter 

 general manager, with offices in New Orleans. Mr. Roberson 

 was the organizer of the company and was formerly assistant 

 general manager of the Mexican Rubber Culture Co., of Port- 

 land, Oregon. At last accounts Messrs. Wildesen and Elsee 

 had been in Mexico inspecting lands on which the new com- 

 pany hold an option. 



RUBBER PLANTING COMPANY PUBLICATIONS. 



Solo-Suchil PlantatioQ Co., Toledo, Ohio=(a) C»ffee Growing and 

 Rubber Cultivation. 32 piges and mip. (t) First quarterly report of 

 plantation manager, June 5, 1903. 4 pages. 



San Pedro Rubber Plantation Co., Milwaukee, Wisconsin. =Report 

 to the Contract Holders of the Amuy-pa Plantation, by Their Commit- 

 tee. 32 pages. 



THE LITTLE KNOWN AMAZON REGION. 



TO the Editor of The India Rubber World: As new 

 companies continue to be reported for working rubber 

 estates in South America, a few warnings supplementary to 

 those given by Mr. Ashmore Russan in your journal of Octo- 

 ber 1, 1902, may not be inappropriate. 



Most of the companies organized to do business here seem 

 to have the vaguest ideas of Amazonian geography. Thus the 

 Amazonas Rubber Estates, Limited, an English company, had 

 one office at Manaos and the other, the manager's office, at 

 Teffe\ regardless of the fact that for business purposes Teffe' 

 was as far from the seringa! as Mandos. There have been com- 

 panies projected with headquarters 1 undreds of miles from their 

 rubber fields, and without navigable streams between. As for 

 the fields in question, they might be worked to advantage, but 

 not with the manager located at points so remote. 



When a Brazilian works a seringa! he goes and lives there 

 and manages it on the spot, which is the only way in which the 

 business can be made to pay. Inexperienced managers are the 

 cause of most of the trouble, and lack of care in choosing the 

 site the cause of the rest, with the companies which come to 

 grief out here. Like all other business, the management of 

 rubber gathering requires experience and a wide knowledge of 

 human nature, and in this case not a little of tropical biology. 

 But the large companies which have been organized distrust 

 the Brazilians, and those Europeans who have acquired the 

 necessary knowledge and expennce distrust the companies, 

 and will not sell what they know for a mess of pottage. And 

 so the companies go from bad to worse and finally wind up. 

 When they get a good man they generally sack him or snub 

 him, and good men don't like either process. 



Experience in other parts of South America — in Rio, Buenos 

 Ayres, or Pernambuco, for instance — is of no use on the Ama- 

 zon, which is like no other part of the world. The only ex- 

 perience of use here is experience of the Amazon, its ways, its 

 diseases, its peoples, its moods and fancies. Some day a Kip- 

 ling will arise and sing the Amazon, and then people on the 

 outside will begin to understand something of its charms and 

 its relentless obedience to its own laws, and then perhaps com- 

 panies will live and not die here. L. G. 



ManAofi, October 28, 1903. 



