TH« INIMA RUBBER WORLD 



Rubber Planting Notes. 



A NEW BRAZILIAN TAPPING KNIFE. 



IN the face of the rivalry of the East Indian plantations the more 

 intelligent Brazilian rubber men have not gone to sleep. The 

 study of improvements -n cultivation, in gathering the crop 

 and in preparing the latex has been going on for some years at 

 Seringal Miry, the e.xperiment station at Manaos. One result 

 of this activity is the invention of the Amazonia tapping knife, 

 by Jose Claudio de Mesquita, president of the Club da Si-rhi- 



(".-) Serin gtieira.") 



The Amazonia Tapping Knife. 



gtieira, to be used for the purpose of doing the least possible 

 damage to the trees. 



Referring to the figures in the illustration, blade 1 cuts a 

 channel in the bark with an inclination of 45 degrees, the depth 

 of which is barely sufficient to let the latex run without over- 

 flowing the incisions made by blade 2 in the interior wall of 

 the channels. The movable key 3 is provided with guide 4 that 

 regulates the direction and depth of the cut, while the part S 

 removes the pieces of bark from the curved blade. The key 6 is 

 held between the thumb and the forefinger, and is moved or 

 held in place, according to the service required of parts 4 and S. 



Method of Tappi 



GAL MiRV. 



Preliminary to tapping at Seringal Miry it is customary to 

 mark off the circumference of trees, which must be at least 

 J^-meter in girth three feet above the ground, into three longi- 

 tudinal sections, each one of which in succession is to be tapped 

 for two years, in order to return to the starting point in seven 



years. When the tree is more than a meter in girth, as shown 

 in the picture, each of the three sections is divided into two or 

 more equal portions of twenty to thirty centimeters each for 

 tapping purposes. 



POSITION OF PARA RUBBER. 



Trade in Para for the quarter ended with June was extremely 

 depressed because the very low price of rubber was aggravated 

 by a rise in exchange Para, while the Amazon valley is passing 

 through a crisis; it is impossible to produce rubber under the 

 conditions prevailing in Brazil so as to compete with the best 

 Eastern plantation rubber when it sells for 40 cents a pound. The 

 fiscal year, July, 1918, to June, 1919, has been a poor one for 

 rubber, the receipts being only 31,400 tons, as compared with 

 35,000 in 1917-1918 and 37,600 tons in 1916-1917; it is the smallest 

 crop since 1903-1904 when the receipts were 30,390 tons. There 

 has been a steady decrease in island rubber with an increase in 

 the upriver production. The exports for the year were 13,265 

 tons to the United States, and 4,924 tons to Europe, while the 

 exports for the first six months of 1919 were 19,492 tons to the 

 United States and 7,532 tons to Europe. However, not all of 

 this was sold. — "Board of Trade Journal." 



RUBBER SEED OIL WASTE AMOUNTS TO $8,500,000. 



It is estimated that on the rubber plantations of the East some 

 300 pounds of rubber seeds per acre fall to the ground and are 

 allowed to rot, despite the $8.50 worth of valuable oil extractable 

 from them and the various uses to which the husks and meal 

 might be put. A further computation of this waste is interesting. 



Of the 2,000,000 acres now embraced by Eastern rubber estates 

 some 1,000,000 acres are now in bearing. This means that 150,000 

 tons of dried rubber seed kernels, go to waste annually. From 

 these kernels 42 per cent of oil is extractable. In other words, 

 15,750 tons of oil worth $540 per ton and aggregating $8,500,000 

 are being wasted annually. For most purposes rubber seed oil 

 is a very good substitute for linseed oil now selling at some $650 

 per ton, and has several times brought about five-sixths the price 

 of the better oil. The cost of collecting and decorticating the 

 seeds, packing and shipping the kernels to England is estimated 

 at $50 a ton. 



JAVA PLANTATIONS DAMAGED BY VOLCANO. 



The plantations of the Rubber Trading Co., Limited, at Soera- 

 baya, and the Djaboong Rubber Maatschappij at Serakkcntjong, 

 the Kroewoek of the Kroewoek Estates, Limited, and the Kali 

 Koening of the Landbouw Mij., Oost-Java, were severely dam- 

 aged by volcanic ash during the eruption of the volcano Kloet, 

 near Batavia, Java, last May. The rubber plantations of Soem- 

 ber Petoeng, and, in fact, all plantations, have been greatly dam- 

 aged by falling ash. The eruption prevented tapping for a period 

 of about five weeks. 



J. .W WlJNAENDTS VAN ReSANDT, WHO HAS BEEN FOR SEVEN 



years superintendent of the Anglo-Dutch Estates Agency, Limited, 

 Batavia, Java, recently left that city for a permanent stay in The 

 Netherlands. He is well known among planters of Middle and 

 West Java and especially among those of East Java. 



Mr. Wijnaendts van Resandt came to Java in 1902 where he 

 acquired a practical knowledge of rubber culture, and later 

 studied the cultivation of rubber trees in the Federated Malay 

 States. For several years he served on the board of directors of 

 the Netherlandsch-Indisch Landbouw Syndicaat (N. I. Agricul- 

 tural Syndicate) and was also a member of the hoard of the Ex- 

 periment Station at West Java. 



