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THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



547 



The Editor's Book Table. 



THE I EYLON H iNDBOOK AND IHIili TORY AND COMPENDIUM 

 of Useful Information for 1914-1915, with Statistical Summary for the 

 Colony, and Planting Review. Compiled and diti I ill of the 



"Ceylon Observer." Published by A. M. & J. Ferguson. [Octavo, 

 1,728 pages; cloth. Price, £1, Is. Maclaren & Son>, Limited, London,] 



IT is fifty-five years since the tirst Ceylon Handbook and Di- 

 rectory was issued. Each year this volume has increased in 

 si?f. until rhi present volume, covering the year 1914-1915, has 

 1,728 pages, besides many additional pages devoted to indexes and 

 other addenda, making a volume of over 1,800 pages. While this 

 hook covers everything of interest connected with Ceylon, it natu- 

 rally devotes a great deal of space to rubber production, which 

 in a few years has developed into such a great industry in that 

 island Perhaps the best way t" show the rapidity of this in- 

 • rease is by giving the acreage planted in rubber, the bearing 

 acreage and the exports. A table showing this information and 

 covering the !a-t ten years is given below: 



ACREAGE AND EXPORTS OF CEYLON RUBBER PLANTATIONS. 



Planted acres. Hearing acres. Exports — Tons. 



1904 25,000 600 33 



1905 40,000 1 75 



1906 100,001 2,000 150 



1907 150, i 100 250 



1908 180, 4.000 400 



109 184, 5,500 681 



1910 203.900 20,000 1,600 



1911 215,000 35.000 3,194 



1912 217.000 85,000 6,700 



1913 220.000 150.000 12.515 



1914 222,000 170,0011 17.000 



1915 224.000 186,000 20.000 



While the presenl planted area in the above table is placed at 

 224,000 acres, the editors state elsewhere that the returns re- 

 ceived in the latter part of 1914 indicate that there is at present 

 a total rubber area of 240,500 acres. 



The book is full of interesting tabulations, but there is space 

 here to reproduce only one more. This table shows the yields 

 of trees from four to ten years of age — as estimated by one of 

 the local publications largely devoted to planting — in Ceylon 

 and Malaya: 



RUBBER YIELD OF TREES OF DIFFERENT AGES. 



Yield. Yield per acre. 



Age of trees. in poumU, of 120 trees. 



Wars. per single tree. in pounds. 



4 Vi 90 



1 120 



2 240 



7 3 360 



- 4 . 460 



r > 6 720 



10 7 840 



[t may be added that the editors intimate that this estimate 

 of yields appears to them rather large — as it undoubtedly will 

 to most people familiar with the subject. 



The volume contains, of course, a list of all the rubber plan- 

 tations in Ceylon, together with all the essential facts pertaining 

 to them. It gives also the distribution of Ceylon rubber — how 

 much goes to the various importing countries. In fact there is 

 .no sort of information relating to the- Ceylon rubber industry 

 that will not be found in this handbook. 



SIXTY AMERICAN OPINIONS ON THE WAR. LONDON. T. FISHER 

 Unvvin, Limited, 1 Adelphi Terrace, YV. C. ISvo. 166 pages. I 



As the name implies, this volume contains extracts front 

 spi dies and writings of sixty prominent Americans on the 

 European war. As it is published in London, the inference 

 may safely be drawn that these opinions are uniformly favor- 

 able to the Allies. The particular reason for referring to the 

 book in this publication lies in the fact that one of the longest 

 extracts in the volume is taken from an article by a well-known 

 rubber man. Adelhert Henry Alden, of Aldens' Successors, 

 Limited, which was published in the "Westminster Gazette," 

 London, on March 19 last. Mr. Alden is referred to by the 



editor as "a direct descendant of John Alden, oi the 'May- 

 flow er.' " 



Mr. Alden makes the statement that there are "no neutrals, 

 individually, in America today. No one's feelings can be neu- 

 tral: the government is — must be for the present — f/i<if is 

 politics." He continues that the reason why a neutral condi- 

 tion of mind is impossible to Americans can be found in the 

 prevailing feeling that this war is a contest between an armed 

 empire with vast national ambitions on one side and democracy, 

 seeking only to pursue peaceful avocations, on the other side. 

 He makes a plea for preparedness, saying that while in the days 

 of Washington his advice to keep free of European alliances 

 was excellent, because it was possible, now it is no longer pos- 

 sible. He continues : "There were two worlds. America was 

 living in one of them, far removed from the congested troubles 

 of Europe which the inhabitants of America had escaped from. 

 But times have changed. Science has changed the world into 

 one world. What affects one country affects all countries; not 

 next week, next month, next year, but within the hour. The 

 American people have a subconsciousness of this, but they don't 

 know it. They don't yet know they have more than sympathy for 

 the Allies. They don't yet k-ium- that if the Allies lose. America's 

 day of trial will come." 



In his part authorship of this volume Mr. Alden appears in 

 a representative group of America's most distinguished men. 

 Among the other Americans, for instance, whose words are 

 quoted, are Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft. Joseph H. 

 Choate, Charles William Eliot, Robert Bacon, William Dean 

 Howells, John G. Hibben and Albert Shaw. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF 

 Tropical Agriculture. Edited by T. A. Henry. T. L. McClintock Bun- 

 bury and Harold Brown, Honorary Secretaries of the Congress. [Lon- 

 don: John Bale, Sons & Danielsson, Limited. Price, 10s. net.] 



This volume contains abstracts of the 150 or more papers, 

 from authorities in 50 different countries, read at the Third In- 

 ternational Congress of Tropical Agriculture which, it will be 

 remembered, was held in June, 1914, at the Imperial Institute. 

 London, concurrently with the International Rubber and Allied 

 Industries Exhibition; also reports of the discussions on many 

 of the principal problems connected with tropical agriculture. 



The subject of Technical Education received considerable at- 

 tention at this congress, the claims of the West Indies as a com- 

 petitor with Ceylon being ably urged by Professor Carmody. of 

 the Trinidad Department of Agriculture, and by Harold Hamel 

 Smith, editor of "Tropical Life" — the latter stating that if the 

 United Kingdom means to enjoy that share of the ever-increas- 

 ing commerce of Latin-America to which it is entitled, two col- 

 leges must be established, one in the East, say in Ceylon, and 

 one in the West Indies, say in Trinidad. R. N. Lyne, director 

 of the Department of Agriculture. Ceylon, outlined the educa- 

 tional methods adopted by that department, the subject of tropi- 

 cal agriculture being included in the public school curriculum. 



The paper by W. A. Williams, of the North British Rubber 

 Co., Limited, on "The Factors Which Determine Variation in 

 Plantation Rubber, with Special Reference to Its Uses f. ir Manu- 

 facturing Purposes." is given in full, being of interest alike to 

 rubber producers and manufacturers 



Another paper on rubber, abstracted in this volume, is on 

 "Increasing the Yield of Funttttnia by the Sparano Tapping Meth- 

 od in the Belgian Congo," by M. Gisseleire, of the Colonial Office. 

 Brussels. This new method is described as similar to the Christy 

 method, but the full herring-bone is not made in one operation: 

 the tapping is completed in 9 or 10 days, with a few new laterals 

 traced each day. The yield produced by this method is said t" 

 be twice that collected by ordinary herring-bone tapping, and 



