69 



SOME SUGGESTIONS. 



The progress of the industry of cuUivated rubber seems now to be 

 -settling into a steady business, but it still is capable of improvement 

 in many ways, and the young planter who thinks he has learnt all 

 there is to learn after six months residence on an estate probably 

 will be found to be still ignorant of what he has to learn. In the last 

 number of the Bulletin we quoted some important articles on the 

 irregularity of the product from the manufacturers point of view. It 

 is not that the product is exported merely in different forms, crepe, 

 sheet, block or scrap, the complaint is that the various portions of the 

 samples are not similar and do not vulcanise in the same \\ay. It is 

 absolutely essential that each lot put through the machine in the fac- 

 tory should be homogeneous, and grading the sheet or crepe will be 

 one of the important duties of the planter in the future. It is not 

 always easy to see the cause of the difference in vulcanizing of differ- 

 ent sheets. It may be due to differences in the age of the trees tapped, 

 or to differences in preparation. Possibly, there is occasionally too 

 much hurry in the drying shed or possibly when smoking is used 

 there is irregularity in the amount of smoke used or duration of 

 the smoking. It seems quite clear that in future all rubber in sheet 

 or biscuit will have to be smoked, and smoked well. This will require 

 material for making the smoke, which material, whether of wood, 

 coconut husk, or other fuel, must be sufficiently abundant close to the 

 estate, and sufficiently cheap. The estate whose manager has des- 

 troyed all timber accessible in order to plant more rubber trees and 

 has no other smoke material to fall back on will probably suffer 

 considerably. It was the exhnustion of firewood and timber acces- 

 sible to the plantations that was the main cause of the death of the 

 pepper and gambier industries in Singapore. 



Some time ago a specimen of crepe was brought to me spotted 

 all over with black stains, the manufacturer alleging this was due to 

 the oil used in the crepe machine which had got into the rubber. 

 The specimen was an extremely weak, rotten rubber, speckled all 

 ■over witli dirty looking spots of some mould or other fungus, and 

 its state was obviously due to careless and dirty work. Probably 

 the water used in washing was foul, or the latex vessels or other ap- 

 paratus dirty. Now, there is no reason why the rubber sheds should 

 not be kept absolutely clean. I have seen the drying sheds and 

 storing sheds in plantations in contact with the coagulating shed. The 

 floor of the latter mud with puddles of water and latex decomposing, 

 a sloppy mess all round the drying shed. The drying shed, which 

 should be on a slope so that rain should run off, was put on a flat 

 piece of ground which in rain was beaten iiito muddy puddles. Can 

 anj^one wonder that th:* rubber gets afl*ected by moulds and bacteria 

 breeding in the slops around.'' The washing and coagulating sheds or 

 any sheds where water is used and likely to lie about in puddles 

 sh >Li!fl be a good distance away from the drying and storing sheds 

 which should be put on a dry slope if possible. Again many of the 



