October i. 1907. | 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



Crude Rubber Interests. 



THE NEW RUBBER FROM BAHIA (BRAZIL). 



A RECENT visit by Mr. Ashmore Russaii, an English author- 

 ity on South American rubber fields, to the interior of 

 the BraziHan state of Bahia, for the purpose of studying 

 some recently discovered forests of "mani(;oba" rubber, forms 

 the subject of an entertaining series of letters he has written for 

 The Financier, of London. Three years ago the United States 

 consul at Bahia city, referring to this new source of rubber, 

 wrote : "The area is said to be very large, but cannot be defined, 

 as the region has not been fully explored." As early as 1899 the 

 British consul at Bahia had reported that large tracts of forest 

 with an abundance of rubber trees were reported to exist in the 

 interior of the state, "but unfortunately, owing to the difficulties 

 of transport, through a country without roads, this source of 

 riches is unavailable." Now, however, the collection of rubber 

 has been actively developed in the country referred to, with the 

 result that the production of the grade known commercially as 

 "manigoba" has been greatly increased. 



Bahia, an Atlantic seaport of Brazil, has long been a shipping 

 point for rubber, but not until recently have her exports included 

 very much "manigoba," that grade having been derived chiefly 

 from Ceara, for which reason it is known widely as "Ceara 

 rubber." The following official figures indicate the growth in 

 tlie total exports of "maniqoba" from Brazil, for several years 

 past, and also the share coming from Bahia port, the figures 

 expressing weights in kilograms: 



Ye.m<. Total Manitoba. From Bahia. 



1901 472,917 23,676 



1902 807,388 143.041 



1933 1,721,894 496.2^4 



1904 2,226.077 939.157 



1905 2,682,217 1.443,826 



1906 2,664,000 1,410,000 



From what Mr. Russan observed there appears reason to look 

 for a continued increase in the output of rubber of this grade, 

 and particularly from Bahia, not only from the native trees, 

 but as a product of cultivated plants. Mr. Russan's travels took 

 him into the heart of the adjacent districts of Marncas and 

 Jequie, in the south part of the state of Bahia. Starting from 

 Bahia port by steamer, he spent a half day reaching the head of 

 navigation on the river Paraguassu. Next he traveled 186 miles 

 en the Bahia Central railway, stopping at Tambury, whence he 

 traveled on horseback for a hundred miles or more into the rub- 

 ber country. Tambury sends to market 250 to 300 tons of rubber 

 a year, and all the neighboring villages are centers of rubber 

 interest. The farthest point reached was Porto Alegre, on the 

 Rio de Contas, through which place 500 tons of rubber pass an- 

 nually. 



Unlike rubber trees elsewhere those in southern Bahia cover 

 the ground, instead of being scattered here and there among 

 various other growths. When the ground is cleared of every- 

 thing but "Mani(;oba" rubber, 100 or more trees remain to the 

 acre. Mr. Russan found millions of these trees, prolific of rub- 

 ber of good quality, but everywhere the story he heard was 

 the same — the lack of capital to employ labor to work the rub- 

 ber. There is also the matter of transportation to be improved. 

 Mr. Russan saw rubber conveyed to the railway stations by 

 trains of pack mules, each group carrying a ton. It may be added 

 that Maracas is a political division of Bahia, "as large as four 

 English counties." with a town of the same name for its capital. 

 Jequie is the name of a river flowing into the Atlantic. This 

 name has been applied more particularly to the rubber produced 

 in southern Bahia. 



It appears that the tree yielding new rubber from Bahia differs 

 from the tree known as "manigoba" in the state of Ceara, lying 



considerably to the north of Bahia. The Ceara tree has long 

 been known to botanists as Manihot Glaciovii, and this is the 

 species which has been planted extensively in Africa and the Far 

 East. Compared with the Manihat Glaziovii, the Jequie rubber 

 tree has a slightly different flower, although the leaves are sim- 

 ilar, and very much larger seeds; the latex flows much more 

 freely and is more abundant ; and, finally, the rubber product is 

 superior. The "spiral" tapping system invented in Ceylon, it is 

 stated, has been successfully applied to the Jequie tree. 



Lieutenant Colonel Prain, director of the Royal Botanic Gar- 

 dens, at Kew, stated recently at a meeting of the London Society 

 of Arts, that the "maniqoba" tree reported to be cultivated in 

 South America was not the same as the tree yielding Ceara rub- 

 ber. The best authorities in Brazil seem agreed that this is true. 



THE MEXICAN "YELLOW TREE." 



Interest continues to be expressed in the tree known locally 

 in Mexico as "el palo amarillo" (the yellow tree), described as 

 an inferior rubber producer in The Indi.\ Rubber World Febru- 

 ary I, 1906 (page 148). The botanists have had the usual diffi- 

 culty in fixing a scientific name to this tree. In 1905 it was 

 designated by a Mexican scientist the Euphorbia elastica, but 

 that name happened to have been applied a few months earlier by 

 a Frenchman to a Madagascar rubber plant. Otto Stapf writes 

 in the Kew Bulletin : "The Mexican plant had therefore to re- 

 ceive a new name and, as 'Amarillo' corresponds to the Latin 

 'fulvas,' I propose for it the name Euphorbia futva." It docs not 

 appear that any process has been discovered to render the rub- 

 ber from this tree commercially valuable, but the oil obtainable 

 from the seeds is referred to as a valuable by-product. 



EXPORT DUTY ON CONGO RUBBER. 



The governments of the Congo Free State, Portugal, and the 

 French republic, under the terms of the protocol of April 8, 

 1892, continued without revision until now, have agreed that the 

 levying of the export duty on crude india-rubber shall be on the 

 basis of an official value of 6 francs a kilogram [=52^/2 cents a 

 pound], instead of 4 francs, as before. A decree of the king- 

 sovereign of the Congo state, dated July 2, 1907, fixes the ex- 

 port tax on rubber from that state at 10 per cent., or 60 francs 

 per 100 kilograms [=5' 4 cents a pound]. 



ADULTERATION OF NIGERIA RUBBER. 



The last yearly report of the high commissioner of Northern 

 Nigeria, in West Africa (Sir Frederick Lugord), says: "Rubber 

 formed nearly three-fourths of the total value of the exports 

 for the year, but I fear that this increase has been obtained at 

 the cost of a considerable destruction of the rubber vines by 

 the senseless process of digging up the roots, from which a very 

 low grade rubber is prepared. Not only are the sources of 

 supply thus permanently destroyed, but the product is so full of 

 impurities (67 per cent. I am told consists of bark and dirt, 

 while other samples are even worse, and not fit for export at all) 

 that it is to be feared that Nigerian rubber will obtain a bad 

 name in the market, which it may hereafter be difficult to re- 

 move. This result has, I believe, been largely due to the com- 

 petition between European firms, which has resulted in the 

 purchase of rubber filled with bark and impurities, which for- 

 merly was unsalable." 



BRIEF MENTION. 



The total production of "mangabeira" rubber for several 

 years past has shown a decline. The exports from the state 

 of Sao Paulo have been: 128.991 kilos in 1904; 95,190 kilos in 

 1905; and 88,535 kilos in 1906. Other statistics of mangabeira 

 rubber appeared in The India Rubber World July i, 1907. 



The annual report of the IMogyana Railway and Navigation 



