March 1, 1919.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



Fro 



The Production of Guayule Rubber. 



a special report by Henry C. Pearson, prepared for the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Co: 



EVEN before the Spanish occupation northern Mexico was 

 a rubber-producing country, the source being a shrub or 

 dwarf tree to-day known as guayule. The natives ob- 

 tained the gum by chewing the bark and made toy balls of it. 

 It is said that this fact was first chronicled by a Jesuit priest, 

 Negrete, about the middle of the eighteenth century. 



The plant was discovered by Dr. J. M. Bigelow, in 1852, when 

 he was attached to the Mexican Boundary Survey. It was later 

 described and named Parthenium argentatum by Professor 

 Asa Gray, of Harvard 

 University. 



In 1876 a guayule prod- 

 uct, known as Durango 

 rubber, was exhibited at 

 the Philadelphia Centen- 

 nial Exposition. Atten- 

 tion was drawn again to 

 it in 1886, when an Eng- 

 lish mining engineer, 

 working in Mexico, re- 

 ported to his principals 

 that he had found "an 

 enormous quantity of a 

 plant that yielded 10 per 

 cent of rubber." 



It was not until 1888, 

 however, that any attempt 

 was made to extract the 

 gum commercially. In 

 that year John H. Cheever, 

 the founder and at that 

 time the treasurer of the 

 New York Belting & 

 Packing Co., New \ork, 

 imported 100,000 pounds 



of the shrub, known as "luiU ' 1 lit. l)ark when removed yielded 

 about 18 per cent of rubber, which was considered equal to the 

 best grade of "centrals." Because of the expense of trans- 

 portation and treatment the experiment was not repeated. 



In 1896 Guillermo Vogel, of Mexico City, sent samples of the 

 shrub and rubber from it to manufacturers in the United States, 

 but they attracted little attention. 



Germans in Mexico endeavored to interest American capital 

 in the extraction of the gum in the late nineties with little 

 success. That some of the shrub or bark was sent to Germany 

 was certain, but the trade heard nothing of it. 



DEVELOPMENT OF EXTRACTION PROCESSES. 



In 1899 William Prampolini, an Italian, took out a patent for 

 extracting guayule by solvents. His apparatus was constructed 

 at Monterey, Mexico, but was only experimental. Two years 

 later the Bergner process was patented in Mexico, and this was 

 followed by a large number of patents for extraction processes, 

 some practical and some otherwise, and for several years after- 

 wards applications for patents for this purpose were numerous. 



In 1903 a small factory was established at Jimulco, Mexico, 

 by Adolpho Marx. 



In 1905 a factory in (lermany, backed by large financial in- 

 terests, did a successful business extracting the guayule from 

 the shrub, which was gathered in Mexico, baled, and shipped to 

 Germany. The Mexican Government, however, placed an ex- 

 port duty of 15 pesos per toti on the shrub, which, with the 

 cost of gathering and transportation, rendered the industry 



unprofitable. 



Beginning in 1902, certain American capitalists financed a 

 series of experiments that led to an invention by William A. 

 Lawrence, by which, in 1904, rubber was extracted by a me- 

 chanical process, and 50 pounds were shipped to the United 

 States. This was the real beginning of the extraction of guayule 

 on a commercial basis in Mexico, and in 1906 it began to be used 

 in quantity. Factories established in the States of Durango, 

 Coahuila, San Luis Potosi, and in Texas soon produced large 

 quantities of rubber. Im- 

 provements in the pro- 

 cesses of extraction tended 

 to produce superior grades, 

 and the guayule industry 

 was fully established on 

 a profitable basis. The 

 rival companies, though 

 strongly competing, were 

 able to secure good prices 

 and the question of a sup- 

 ply of the shrub became 

 important. This led to 

 the purchase of large tracts 

 where the shrub was 

 plentiful and the erection 

 of extraction plants in 

 many little-known sections 

 of Mexico. 



In 1907 the leading pro- 

 ducers were companies 

 briefly designated as the 

 Continental, the Madero, 

 and the Anglo-Mexicana. 

 The Continental-Mexican 

 Rubber Co. had its prin- 

 cipal plant at Torreun, its other factories being at Saltillo, 

 Ocampo, Gomez Palacio, and La Grunidora. It had at that 

 time acquired great tracts of guayule-producing land. The Ma- 

 dero family were the principal owners of the Compania Explota- 

 dora Coahuilense, S. A., with headquarters at Parras, Coahuila, 

 and other plants at Las Delicias, Cuartros Cienegas, and 

 Vanegas. They also owned or controlled great tracts of shrub- 

 producing land. The third largest interest was the Compania 

 Explotadora de Caucho Mexicana, with factories at Saltillo 

 and Jimulco. There were also ten or a dozen other smaller 

 concerns. From 1910 the production increased to a remarkable 

 extent, though the revolutions of recent years in Mexico inter- 

 fered seriously with the industry. 



ORIGIN OF THE NAME. 

 The name guayule, guayhule, or huayule, comes from the 

 Spanish hay and Indian hulc, or "rubber yielder." In Durango, 

 it is called ycrba de hule ; and in San Luis Potosi is called yule; 

 also called jiguhite near Saltillo, and sometimes copaline.^ 

 Prampolini calls it ycrba del negro or mariola, by which last 

 name it is widely known, though mariola rightly means a kindred 

 species (Parthenium incanum H. B. K.). 



Dr. Seler, of Berlin, however, questions Endlich's idea that 

 guayule— /my (has or there is) and hule (rubber) ; hayhule= 

 rubber bearer. Seler says it is from two Indian words, quauh 

 (wood, tree, or forest) and olli (rubber), thus guauholU=: 



of duayulc" by Dr. Rudolph Endlicli, -Der 



