Gums, Resins, 



490 



[June, 1912, 



and its southern confluents. It might 

 be worked with much greater success 

 if some instrument were used for tap- 

 ping which would get at the laticiferous 

 vessels without touching the wood, 



Castilloa Ulei, commonly called the 

 " caueho," is distributed almost through- 

 out the whole Amazonian region, but 

 the largest reserves of this rubber- 

 bearing species exist in the southern part 

 of the State of Para. 



Lastly Manihot Glaziovii and Hancor- 

 nia speciosa must be mentioned. Mani- 

 hot extends along the coast from the 

 south of Para to the province of Para- 

 hyba, while Hancornia only becomes 

 important beyond that Province, whence 

 it descends along the coast down to Sao 

 Paulo, while at the same time it makes 

 its way inward as far as the south of 

 the province of Matto Grosso. It will 

 be seen that the extent of rubber pro- 

 duction in Brazil is not restricted by 

 the number or variety of produciug 

 trees, although the principal sources 

 will remain Hevca Brasilicnsis, Castilloa 

 and Manihot, especially the first. We 

 have seen that more than 20(1 million 

 plants are contained in the Brazilian 

 stands of Hevea, The yield of a Hevca 

 is estimated at 5 kgs (11 lb,) per season, 

 which would make one thousand million 

 kgs, or a million tons of rubber per 

 season. Present exportation, it will be 

 remembered, is only 38,000 tons and the 

 consumption of the world 85,000 tons. 

 The conclusion which logically follows 

 and which all competent men have ad- 

 opted is that Brazilian production will 

 successfully hold the field against all 

 other production if a serious effort is 

 made towards judicious exploitation of 

 this immense wealth. M. Hubert con- 

 cluded his lecture at the International 

 Rubber Exhibition in London by stating 

 that the reserves of rubber bearing trees 

 in the Amazonian region appear inex- 

 haustible. It is, he said, only a question 

 of greater facility of communication to 

 enable them to be worked and more 

 suitable methods to be adopted for col- 

 lecting the rubber in order to spare the 

 trees. But it must further be added 



that the hygienic conditions of the 

 country and the industry of rub- 

 ber gathering and coagulation itself 

 must be carefully studied, because the 

 question of rubber will in the future be 

 one of great importance, and among the 

 different producing countries, Brazil is 

 by far the most advantageously situated 

 from this point of view. M. Lecomte* 

 describes the economic condition of this 

 production in Brazil. A frightful death 

 rate is decimating the population of 

 rubber gatherers in the upper parts of 

 the river and is due chiefly to bad food 

 and excesses of every description, which 

 weaken the men, making them fall easy 

 victims to the malignant fever and the 

 beri-beri which are endemic in these 

 wet woody regions, where the sun can 

 never purify the soil covered with de- 

 composing organic substances. 



In order to realise clearly, indepen- 

 dently of the very powerful philan- 

 thropic arguments, the economic dif- 

 ference produced by this state of things, 

 it is sufficient to compare the working 

 costs of different producing regions. 

 M. Lecomte calculates them lor Brazil 

 at 2,515 francs per hectare (£40 4s 9d 

 per acre), while Stanley Arden reckons 

 816 francs per hectare (£13 Is Id per 

 acre) in Malaya, Bray 886 francs per hec- 

 tare (£14 2i Id) in the Dutch East Indies. 

 Rousselet885 (£14 23 2dj for the Congo 

 and finally M. Pauchere indicates the 

 amount of 471 francs (£7 10s 8d> for 

 Madagascar. 



As to the Brazilians, says M. Lamy- 

 Torrilhon, they are perfectly well aware 

 of what they have to do if they wish 

 to retain the predominant position in 

 the rubber market. Ac the present time 

 they have quality and quantity of the 

 product in their favour ; but they must 

 devote the whole of their activity to 

 restoring the destroyed forests as near 

 as possible to the shipping ports, they 

 must multiply roads, must facilitate 

 the importation of labour and, above 

 all, not abandon their methods of curing, 

 which, owiog to the qualities it im- 



* Le Caoutchouc et la Gutta. Paris, September, 

 1911. 



