AGRICULTURAL BULLETIN 



OF THE 



STRAITS 



AND 



FEDERATED MALAY STATES. 



No. 4.] APRIL, 1905. [Vol. IV. 



DECLINE IN RUBBER. 



Yield in various parts of the World. 



The rapid disappearance of wild rubber in many parts of the 

 world is becoming more and more striking as years go by. The 

 heavy demand for rubber of all sorts has nearly exhausted all the 

 accessible forests of wild rubber plants. In nearly all cases, the 

 rubber collector quite destroys the tree or creeper, so that, should the 

 forests be even full of seedlings, it will be a very long time before 

 these are fit to produce rubber. Moreover, the destruction of the 

 plants means the destruction of the seeds, as few or no seed-bearers 

 are left. It is in this way that several other jungle-products have 

 been almost or quite exterminated. The rubber trade has been 

 living almost exclusively on jungle rubber, and has attained thus 

 enormous proportions. Now comes a still greater increase of demand 

 and a very rapid failure of supply. Some recent rubber statistics 

 published in the India Rubber World (February 1st, 1905), show this 

 collapse of the world supply very clearly. 



Thus, the export of rubber from Burmah in 1 892- 1893 was 



I, 116,864 pounds, decreasing to 1,038,240 in 1895, w ' tn a sudden 

 drop to 801,248 in 1896, and a steady decline to 200,704 pounds in 

 1903-1904. 



In Bolivia, in 1900, 7,691.728 pounds were exported, with a rapid 

 steady decline to 2,906,274 in 1903. 



British Central Africa exported in 1901-1902, 14,393 ^ pounds, 



II, 723 next year, and last year, 4,262. Southern Nigeria, in 1901, 

 1,740,156 pounds; in 1903, 1,177,803. 



Portuguese East Africa seems to have increased a little, but the 

 amount exported is small, and there is an increase in impure cooked 

 rubber and a diminution in better grades. 



In British Honduras, there has been a steady fall from 55,331 in 

 1899 to 22,176 in 1903 



