WILD RUBBER v. PLANTATION RUBBER 65 



Guiana is experimenting with its Sapiums, and Africa 

 has planted Funtumia. 



But at present the only plantation rubber which 

 wild rubber has to fear is the Para that is exported 

 from the Eastern plantations. You remember how 

 recently the first rubber plantations were estab- 

 lished in the East ? Now, here are a few facts which 

 will give you a rough idea of the enormous develop- 

 ments that have been brought about in a very few 

 years. 



In the Malay Peninsula, 400,000 acres of land are 

 already planted up with Hevea ; about 180,000 natives 

 are employed on the estates ; over £23,000,000 of money 

 has been invested in rubber-growing. This country 

 exports the largest amount of cultivated rubber ; its 

 output has increased from 130 tons in 1905 to 6,504 tons 

 in 1910. The total value of all the rubber exported 

 by Malaya from 1905 to 1910 was £10,225,000. 



In Ceylon, the rubber plantations occupy about 

 200,000 acres of land. Nearly all the trees have been 

 planted since 1904. In 1910, the exports amounted to 

 1,601 tons ; it is estimated that the amount of rubber 

 produced in 1911 will be nearly 4,000 tons. So 

 popular has rubber-growing become in this part of the 

 world that the fl.ourishing tea-bush has had to give 

 place to Heveas on hundreds of acres in the lowlands. 

 And rubber-trees are now competing with tea-bushes 

 for many a highland acre. They have shown that 

 they can live and do well on heights up to about 

 2,000 feet, so more and more of them are being planted 

 on the hills among the little tea-bushes, and the old 

 crop that has made so much money for Ceylon is dying 

 off for want of light and air, as the promising new crop 



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