

THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[July 1, 1915. 



TWO AMERICAN PLANTING COMPANIES. 



The eighth annual reports of the Pahang Rubber ( o., Limited, 

 and , i >1 . : Rubb I I 0., Limited, of Malaya, have 



recently been issued, covering the year 1''14. The list of of- 

 ficer- tors in these two companies include- the names 

 of Albert and Fred I P Waterhouse, of The Waterhouse Co., 

 Limit lulu. Albert Waterhouse being secretary and Fred 

 I. P. Waterhouse ti I both companies. On the Pahang 

 plantation, which is located at Cheroh, Pahang, the average num- 

 ber of trees tapped daily throughout the year was 53,781, the 

 tappings being 19,630,139. The production of dry rubber 

 for the year amounted to 202,326 pounds— an increase of 77,966 

 pounds over the output of 191,?— the average yield per tree being 

 placed ai 3.76 pounds, as against 2.73 in 1913. Total expendi- 

 tures on the 1914 crop amounted to $42,266 ($7,602.74 of this 

 amount being for permanent improvements), as against S2S.177.65 

 in 1913. The cost of tapping was 14. 4o cent- per pound, while 

 the total operating expenditures on the estate, including this 

 amounted to 40.98 cents per pound. The average price 

 obtained for rubber was 4477 cent- per pound. The net profits 

 for the year are placed at $2,257.88 and the gross sales at 

 $94,875.67. The manager's estimate of production for 1915 is 

 for 285,000 pounds of rubber. 



Labor is the chief difficulty on this estate, it being practically 

 impossible to keep a permanent force. Government work on 

 railroads having 1-ecn suspended for the present, to a certain 

 extent, a larger number of hands are procurable than usual, and 

 the price of labor has fallen off somewhat. The average daily 

 wage oi coolies on this estate during the year was 45.96 cents. 

 Tin average number (if coolies employed per day was 163, and 

 the average collection of rubber per day for each coolie was 3.40 

 pounds. 



The Tanjong Olok estate covers an area of 2.^3,2 acres, of 

 which 980 acre- is planted. 70.823 trees of the 134.338 total being 

 oi tapping age. The output for the year was 202.943 pounds, on 

 which the all-in costs totaled 29.4 cents per pound. The net 

 profit for the year is given at $17,378.31, the gross sales at 199.521 

 pounds, valued at $93,066.75; the average price for all grades 

 being 46.645 cent-, gold, at Singapore. An average of 57,015 

 tappings were made daily on this estate, or a total of 20,810,467 

 during the year, at a cost of about 32 l .! cents per tree per year; 

 and the average amount of rubber obtained per tree at each tap- 

 ping was approximately .156 ounces, or 3.56 pounds, for the year. 

 The estimated output for 1915 is 270,000 pounds. 



(400 pounds) shall be catalogued. A leading broker on the Singa- 

 pore market believes that better prices can be obtained on large 

 parcels than on small ones, and he advises his customers to hold 

 their scrap until they have at least 3 piculs of it. Small quanti- 

 ties will continue to be -old by private tender. 



EFFECT OF WAR ON EASTERN RUBBER PLANTATIONS. 



From all available information it is clear that Eastern rubber 

 plantations are weathering the war storm much better than even 

 the most optimistic expected. Save for the high freights and 

 the shortage of shipping facilities there is nothing for plantations 

 to complain of. Rubber is slowly advancing and some hope 

 exi-ts that it will again reach the 2s. 6d. figure. There is no 

 danger of rubber falling below remunerative prices, at least not 

 in the near future. When the war comes to an end. no doubt 

 immense quantities of rubber waste will be reclaimed, but there 

 will also be a general renewal of strictly commercial manufac- 

 turing and consequently the chances are that crude rubber will 

 still be needed in large quantities. 



SINGAPORE RUBBER AUCTIONS. 



Auction sales of rubber are held in Singapore under the auspices 

 of the Rubber Association of the local Chamber of Commerce. 

 This association lists practically any lot of rubber, even lots of 

 less than a picul or 133; j pound- Tin- results in considerable 

 delay at auctions and a movement is now under way to expedite 

 the c sales by fixing a minimum weight for the catalogu- 



ed that no lots of le-s than 3 piculs 



STRAITS SETTLEMENTS RUBBER EXPORTS. 



Aii official cablegram received from the Colonial Secretary, 



Singapore, states that the export of plantation rubber during the 



mouth of .April amounted to 1,978 tons, as compared with 2,477 



in March and 1,548 tons in the corresponding month last 



year. 



The following is a comparative table showing the export tor 

 three years : 



1913. 1914. 1915. 



Unitary tons 784 1,181 2,576 



February 74.1 1,703 2,741 



March 898 1,285 2.477 



April 762 1,548 1.978 



Total 3,187 5,717 9,772 



These figures include transhipments of rubber from various 

 places in the neighborhood af the Straits Settlements, such as 

 Borneo, Java. Sumatra and the non-Federated Malay States, as 

 well as rubber actually exported from the Colony, but do not 

 include rubber exports from the Federated Malay States. 



INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS. 



Some time ago the Department of Agriculture in Ceylon 

 prepared a small quantity of Para rubber by the Wickham 

 process and forwarded it to the Imperial Institute, London, 

 for experiments. Samples of crepe rubber from trees of the 

 same age on the same plantation were also sent to London for 

 comparison. The Imperial Institute furnished samples of both 

 rubbers to a number of British manufacturers who were glad to 

 make technical tests in order to determine the quality of the 

 rubber for industrial purposes. The reports of these manufac- 

 turers are quite interesting. One manufacturer reported that 

 the crepe rubber was about 8 per cent, better than the smoked 

 from his point of view as a manufacturer and that the smoked 

 sample contained 5.07 per cent, of resin. He declined to make anv 

 statement comparing the samples with fine hard Para. 



Another firm found that the samples of smoked rubber fur- 

 nished contained 3.77 per cent, of resin. The experimental de- 

 partment of this firm also noted that in mixings where an ac- 

 celerator was present the Wickham rubber had decidedly clearer 

 cutting properties than hard fine Para. On the other hand, when 

 no accelerator was added to the mixing the reverse was the 

 result, and the sample appeared in this respect to be of about 

 the same value as ordinary smoked sheet. More efficient vul- 

 canization was obtained with the Wickham rubber than with the 

 sample of crepe. The former was superior in strength to the 

 crepe, but still below fine hard Para, the variation being about 

 10 per cent, in each case. Xo advantage over smoked sheet 

 plantation was discovered in the samples tested. Extensibility or 

 -train tests showed the experimental samples much weaker than 

 tine hard Para, and also even below the average for ordinary 

 plantation, smoked and unsmoked. The firm that made these 

 experiments believes the AVickham method of smoking, in which 

 the whole of the rubber is penetrated by the smoke, to be pref- 

 erable to the ordinary method of preparing smoked sheet in which 

 the smoke is only superficial. Still another firm that experi- 

 mented with the Imperial Institute samples found that the crude 

 rubber was about 8 per cent, better than smoked block for in- 

 dustrial purposes. 



In view of the great variance in these reports and of the im- 

 possibility of explaining them, the Imperial Institute is carrying 

 out a series of vulcanizing and testing experiments with the re- 

 mainder of the rubber. 



