AGRICULTURAL BULLETIN 



OF THE 



>tj STRAITS 



AND 



FEDERATED MALAY STATES. 



No. 10.] OCTOBER, 1906. [Vol. V. 



SYNTHETIC RUBBER. 



At the meeting of the British Association this year at York, 

 Professor Wyndham DunSTAN delivered an important address on 

 "Some Imperial Aspects of applied Chemistry" in which he shows, 

 the importance of Chemical Science to the Agriculturist and that 

 especially in the tropical portion of the empire, and points out the 

 pressing need that the Imperial Government should recognize more 

 fully than it has done, and at least as fully as foreign Governments 

 are already doing the claims of scientific investigation to be regarded 

 as the essential first step in the material and commercial develop- 

 ment of our possessions. The same feeling runs through all the 

 introductory addresses of the Association as yet published, and will 

 be strongly endorsed by all thinkers. But to readers in the Eastern 

 tropics his account of the chemistry of rubber will be of more special 

 interest. He says — There is no more important group of questions 

 demanding attention from the chemist at the present time than those 

 connected with the production of India rubber or Caoutchouc. An 

 enormous increase in the demand for India-rubber has taken place 

 in the last few years and last year the production was not less than 

 60,000 tons. Till recently the supply of rubber came chiefly from 

 two sources, the forests of Brazil which contain the tree known as 

 Hevea braziliensis the Para-rubber of commerce and the forests of 

 Africa where climbing plants chiefly of the Landolphia class also 

 furnish rubber. The increase demand for Caoutchouc has led to 

 the extensive planting of the Para-rubber tree especially in Ceylon 

 and in the Federated Malay States. Systematic cultivation and 

 improved method of preparation are responsible for the fact that 

 the product of the cultivated tree is now commanding a higher price 

 than the product of the wild Brazil. It is estimated that within the 

 next seven years the exports of cultivated rubber from Ceylon and 

 the Federated Malay States will reach between ten and fifteen 

 million pounds annually and that after fifteen years they may exceed 

 the exports of the so called wild rubber of Brazil. 



The services which chemistry can render to the elucidation of 

 the problems of rubber production and utilization are very nume- 



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