228 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[April i, 1908. 



planted by a former owner, and intend planting up to 1,500 acres. 

 The company state that rubber from four and five year old trees 

 was gathered and sold last year, of the value approixmately of 

 $3,000 gold, and that about 20,000 trees are now ready for tapping 

 and will be dealt with this year. The neighboring property of the 

 Nicaragua Improvement and Development Co., owned by practi- 

 cally the same interest, is reported to have 310,000 planted Castil- 

 loa trees standing. The Tuma company are encouraged by the 

 action of the government providing for the introduction of 

 Chinese coolie labor on an extensive scale. The officers of the 

 company are C. G. Thomson, president; G. W. Sweetser, vice- 

 president, and J. F. Mosby, secretary and treasurer; the general 

 offices are at No. 15 Broad street, New York. 



RESTTLTS FROM PLANTING "CEARA." 



In a compreiiensive report on Ceara rubber (Maiiilwt Gla:iovii) . 

 by W. H. Johnson, director of agriculture for the Companhia 

 de Mocambique, says that the records he has compiled 

 seem to indicate that, except in a very few instances, 

 profitable results have not been obtained from the 

 cultivation of the Ceara tree. "Still," he says, "it 

 should be borne in mind that the Para rubber tree was largely 

 cultivated for a considerable period before a satisfactory- method 

 of tapping was discovered, and it is therefore quite possible that 

 when the tapping of Ceara trees has been more carefully and 

 generally studied, better results will be forthcoming." Summing 

 up the results noted in Portuguese East Africa, Mr. Johnson con- 

 cludes that if due consideration be given to the unfavorable con- 

 ditions under which the trees for the most part have been grown, 

 "the prospects of profitably contivating the Ceara rubber tree in 

 this territory are distinctly encouraging." 



PLANTING IN THE GERMAN COLONIES. 



Dr. P.aul Preuss, technical director of the Neu Guinea Com- 

 pagnie, estimates the extent of rubber planting in the German 

 colonies as follows, the figures relating (i) to the number of 

 hectares, (2) the equivalent number of acres, and (3) the ap- 

 proximate number of trees : 



Hectares. Acres. Trees. 



German East .A.frica 1,250 3,089 1,500,000 



German New Guinea 1,100 2,718 603,000 



Kamerun 700 1,730 900,000 



Samao 450 1,1 12_ 260,600 



Togo 80 198" 41,300 



Total 3,580 8,847 3,304,900 



The planting in German East Africa is practically all 

 "manigoba" (Maiiihot GIa::iovn), but this species figures slightly 

 in the other colonies, where Hcvea, Ficus, Castilloa and Fun- 

 tunica are under cultivation. 



NANCHITAL PLANTATION CO. 



The Nanchital Plantation Co., incorporated under the laws of 

 Arizona with $300,000 capital authorized, is named after a large 

 mountain near its property in the canton of Minatitlan, in Vera 

 Cruz, Mexico, bordering on the Uspanapa river, and convenient to 

 the port of Coatzacoalcos. The company report the ownership 

 of 3,000 acres, of which 1,000 are intended to be planted to sugar 

 cane, and the remainder to rubber and other crops. There are 

 on the property some 4,000 rubber trees planted in 1902, which 

 are reported to be making good progress. The officers are J. B. 

 Huling, president; H. M. Scambler, vice president; and Oscar 

 Meyer, secretary and treasurer, the offices being at No. 178 Mon- 

 roe street, Chicago. Mr. Meyer was formerly an officer of 

 The Aztec Plantation Co., an Illinois corporation formed to de- 

 velop the tract known as "La Esperanza," which now has be- 

 come the property of the Nanchital Plantation Co. 



MAKING TAPPING KNIVES AT SHEFFIELD. 



The long established cutlery house of George Wostenholm & 

 Son, Limited, of Sheffield, England, after having added tea 

 pruners to their list of products on a large scale, have entered 

 the field of supplying rubber tapping knives. Hitherto they have 



supplied such knives to one customer only, but this is a patent 

 article that they make to order and so are unable to supply other 

 parties with it. They advise The India Rubber World, however, 

 that at the present time they are applying themselves to the pro- 

 duction of other patterns of rubber tapping knives, as so far 

 the supply of these on the market have not seemed to meet the 

 demand. 



DIRECTORY OF RUBBER PLANTATIONS. 



A SUBSTANTIAL volume of 206 pages, entitled "Rubber 

 •** Producing Companies," has been brought out by Messrs. 

 Gow, Wilson & Stanton (Limited), London, tea and rubber 

 brokers, who were the first it is believed to attempt to classify and 

 arrange briefly for the investor the leading features of companies 

 planting rubber in the Far East. The first edition of their book 

 two years ago listed only 35 companies, whereas the volume now 

 under notice gives details regarding 151 companies, nearly every 

 one of which is organized under British laws, and all capital- 

 ized in sterling. All are planting rubber, though some are still 

 interested in tea or other products. Of these 61 are planting in 

 Ceylon and India, 57 in Malaya, 25 in Borneo and elsewhere in 

 the East, and 8 in Africa or South America. It is stated that 

 the total amount of share capital issued by these companies is 

 approximately i 1 5,000,000 [:=$7S,ooo,ooo]. 



This list, by the way, does not include a large number of com- 

 panies, for the most part comparatively small, with lieadquarters 

 in the Far East and whose capitals are in rupees or British dol- 

 lars. In the case of each company is given the date of or- 

 ganization, lists of directors and the London office, capital au- 

 thorized or issued, situation and area of the plantation, details 

 of planting, report of production if any, and dividends to date — 

 the whole forming a most useful work of reference for those in- 

 terested. Another feature of the book is a directory of directors 

 in the various countries, embracing no fewer than 370 names. 



By the way, the Financial Times (London) has compiled from 

 the records at Somerset House a list of the rubber planting com- 

 panies registered there during 1907, totalling 62, with an aggregate 

 capital of £5,263,260 [=$25,613,654.79]. Of the companies re- 

 ferred to I is formed to work in Brazil, 6 in Ceylon, and 16 in 

 Malaya, leaving 38, or more than half the number, to operate in 

 other parts of the world, showing that British interest in rubber 

 is no longer confined to the British colonies in Ceylon and the 

 Malaya peninsula. 



A GOODYEAR EXPERIMENT. 



ONE of the few men living who knew Charles Goodyear well 

 is Mr. A. D. Schlesinger, who has been so long associated 

 with the hard rubber industry at College Point. Mr. Schlesinger's 

 descriptions of the inventor's enthusiasm in connection with 

 rubber, his utter disregard of time or money, and his belief that 

 rubber could do anything and be of use everywhere, are most 

 graphic. 



For example : impressed with the belief that if ships' bottoms 

 were covered with rubber they would never become foul, Mr. 

 Goodyear ordered a great quantity of Russia iron, had it coated 

 with hard rubber, and submerged it in salt water. 



"After an interval the sheets were drawn up for examination, 

 and," said Mr. Schlesinger, "we found out w'hat hard rubber 

 would do. The sheets were so covered with barnacles and weed 

 that they looked like mats. The experiment cost hundreds of 

 dollars, while the case might just as well be proved for ten." 



Cicely Rubber Estates Co., Limited, pays an interim dividend 

 of 15 per cent, on account of the year ending March 31, 1907. 

 Ten per cent, was paid for the whole of the preceding year and 

 5 per cent, for 1904-05. 



