and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society.— December, 1912. 493 



similarly successful. The action of heat prove 

 the most promising method, but the latex re- 

 quires several hours at a temperature of ninety 

 degrees centigrade to become thoroughly co- 

 agulated. The resultant mass is extremely 

 adhesive, but does not possess the strong cohe- 

 sive properties of coagulated latex from Para or 

 Ceara trees, and does not appear to contain a 

 very large per cent, of caoutchouc, but to be 

 composed in greater part of resins. An analysis 

 gives 15'80 per cent, of caoutchouc and 55'95 

 per cent, of resins. This compares with Ceara 

 75*72 per cent., and Balata 13'95 per cent. The 

 summary of the information gained by some 

 exhaustive experiments is that the beet means 

 of coagulating is by beat or spraying with alco- 

 hol. The constituents of most commercial value 

 are the resins. The rubber is of inferior quality, 

 but Mr McGeorge thinks it might find use as a 

 low grade product. In the event of the latex 

 being worked the insoluble residue of 40 to 50 per 

 cent, would have as a means of its disposal a 

 possibility of its sale as a fertiliser on account 

 of its high nitrogen content, 



Mr Anderson gives details of the working and 

 tapping. The tree region is very dry with only 

 twenty inches of rain per annum, and the eleva- 

 tion 3,000 feet. Tapping can be done every three 

 months, and the latex flows freely and in large 

 quantities. From six trees tapped in the fore 

 noon two-and-a-half pounds of latex was ob- 

 tained. The trees will live and produce latex 

 through long and severe droughts; they repro- 

 duce freely, and can be tapped very much like 

 theCastilloa tree, and about as often. Tapping 

 on the full herring bone principle a man can 

 tap 200 trees per day, and with an average yield 

 of half that produced by the six trees referred to 

 a man could thus collect 41 66 lb. of latex in a day. 



With cultivation at a lower elevation, the tree 

 might be able to produce a low grade rubber, 

 but the Middle East industry cannot look for 

 much competition from Hawaii. 



THE MOZAMBIQUE RUBBER 

 INDUSTRY. 



There is said to be no industry in Portuguese 

 East Africa with a brighter prospect than that 

 of rubber exploitation. The rubber forests are 

 extensive, and the landolpbia vines from which 

 the rubber is extracted are profuse. With organ- 

 isation and working capital there is no reason 

 why the export of rubber should not shortly 

 increase to 500 tons annually, while the percen- 

 tage of rubber to waste in the vines is small as 

 compared, for instance, with the output of latex 



from a young Ceara tree, the abundance of the 

 vine and its remarkable powers of recuperation 

 are factors which more than make up for the low 

 percentage. There are at present in use two 

 native methods of extracting rubber. The first, 

 that of incision or tapping, is followed by all 

 natives south of the Zambesi Valley, and it 

 produces a high-class rubber known as "Moz- 

 ambique pink," second only, according to the 

 United States Consul at Lourenco Marques, to 

 best Para on the European market. The other 



METHOD OF EXTRACTION, KNOWN AS POUNDING, 



is generally followed in the Mozambique and 

 other northern districts. There the bark is 

 stripped from the roots of the vines, or from 

 the vines, and is cooked over a slow fire and 

 pounded until the bark is finally pounded out, 

 leaving a msss of rubber in all stages of crudity. 

 This rubber is known as Mozambique rooty. 

 It is classed very low, but a large concern now 

 working in the Mozambique district has per- 

 fected the system of pounding to the point of 

 producing a rubber which i3 rapidly approa- 

 ching the classification of Mozambique pink. 

 A strange truth has come to light in regard to the 

 landolphia, and that is that while vines are fre- 

 quently killed by incision or tapping, this seldom 

 happens with the vine which is cut down almost 

 to the ground after maturity. It is also a notable 

 fact that large parts of the root of a vine can be 

 dug up and cut off without killing the vine. In 

 the Mozambique district there are places where 

 natives have been cutting roots from the same 

 vines year after year. The recognition of this fact 

 will make an enormous difference in the esti- 

 mates of the capacity of the forests. Most 

 rubber areas in the province are well known, and 

 up to a year ago they were all in the hands of 

 the Government. The promulgation of the law 

 of September 2nd, 1909, gave an impetus to 

 private enterprise, and since the law came into 

 force large districts have been taken up, and 

 final title has been ceded by the Government 

 on approximately 450,000 acres of forest. These 

 large tracts are being worked mostly on a small 

 scale, owing to lack of capital, and some are not 

 being worked at all. 



In the terms of the land law referred to above, 

 it is most difficult, if not 



IMPOSSIBLE, FOB A FOREIGN CAPITALIST TO ACQUIRE 

 DIRECTLY A TRACT LARGE ENOUGH 



to give returns on a big investment, say 50,000 

 hectares(123,000 acres). Such a grant would be sub- 

 jected to the approval of the provincial council, 

 the Governor-General, and the home government, 

 and would finally come up for auction. However, 

 various local groups of Portuguese, with the ten 



