and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society.— Nov., 1910, 469 



Monthly Labour.— Men receive a monthly 

 wage often pesos. Women and boys five pesos. 

 Men using American machinery are paid one 

 peso per month extra. All labourers are paid 

 in cash. 



All labourers, up to the present time, have 

 been required to subsist and house themselves. 

 The only extra expense, in addition to their 

 wages, has been a little medical attention for 

 themselves and their families. 



While the above is a saving to the estate it is 

 nevertheless recommended that at some time in 

 the future barrack houses and individual shacks 

 be built for the labourers. 



LIVE STOCK. 



We have a total of seventeen large work ani- 

 mals, each one of which is capable of and is now 

 pulling a one-handled American plow, especially 

 made for the use of the native and for work in 

 this particular soil. In addition f o the above 

 we have four saddle horses, three cows with fold 

 and one 10-months-old calf ,— Mindanao Herald, 

 Sept, 24. 



JAVA COCA: A MONOPOLY OF 

 PRODUCTION. 



Reference has already been made in the C. & D. 

 to Dr de Jong's proposals to monopolise the pro- 

 duction of coca and cocaine in Java. A recent 

 number of •' Teysraannia" contains a letter that 

 Dr de Jong has received from a correspondent in 

 Germany discussing the formation of a Trust 

 among the coca-planters. 'The facts contained 

 in the letter are briefly as follows :— -The world's 

 consumption of cocaine is 12,000 to 15,000 kilos 

 per annum, a large part of the raw material 

 coming from South America. Owing to lack of 

 combination among the producers there and to 

 the existence of an understanding among the 

 cocaine-makers in Europe, 



THE PKICE 



for crude South American cocaine is practically 

 controlled by the latter, and 



HAS FALLEN IN RECENT YEARS FROM M410 to M170 



per kilo, calculated on the actual cocaine pre- 

 sent, and at the moment the price is from ml80 

 to m200 per kilo. This fall has been produced 

 by the CocaiDe Convention allowing crude 

 cocaine to accumulate until the producers were 

 forced to sell at very low rates. It is considered 

 that the same fate will overtake the Java plan- 

 ters unless they take steps to prevent a similar 

 pressuro" being applied to them. At present 

 everything is favourable for joint action on the 

 part of the Java planters since the Convention of 

 Cocaine-manufacturers has dissolved, and under 

 present conditions South American cannot com- 

 pete with that made from Java coca-leaves, so 

 that everything indicates that a combination of 

 Java planters could secure complete control of the 

 cocaine-market. This state of things would best be 

 brought about by selling the cocaine made in Java 

 at ral70 cocaine to 180 per kilo., at which Euro- 

 pean makers could not compete. A working 

 agreement should be made with the factory in 

 Europe now using Java leaves as a raw material. 

 Difficulties might be experienced with one pro- 

 minent German cocaine-maker who owns coca- 



plantations in Java, but as his output of leaves 

 does not meet his own requirements, an arrange- 

 ment could probably be effected. Low prices 

 would have to be maintained for a year or 

 eighteen months, but after that they could pro- 

 bably be gradually raised to about m.400 per 

 kilo, in three or four years. The cost of a plant 

 for extracting cocaine is estimated at m. 20,000, 

 and of a factory large enough to produce 10,000 

 kilos, of pure cocaine per annum at anothor 

 m. 20,000. The necessary capital should be pro- 

 vided by the planters themselves, so that they 

 may have complete control, though an impor- 

 tant French firm is stated to be willing to pro- 

 vide the necessary capital, in which case Dr. de 

 Jong's correspondent, who describes himself as 

 having given up cocaine manufacture owing to 

 the present low prices, offers to undertake the 

 management of the factory and to make preli- 

 minary trials in his own plant. — Chemist and 

 Druggist, Oct. 1. 



SMOKED RUBBER FROM SINGAPORE 

 BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



We have the pleasure of presenting the fol- 

 lowing report on some Para rubber smoked on 

 spindles in the Botanic Gardens and sent to 

 Messrs Go w, Wilson and Stanton for examination 

 and report. It will be noticed that the report 

 is not made by a broker, but by a manufacturer 

 who has treated it from a manufacturer's point 

 of view, the only view that is really valuable. 

 For some time we have been working and 



EXPERIMENTING WITH VARIOUS METHODS OF 

 SMOKING 



latex with a view of making Plantation rubber 

 if possible as closely resembling Fine Hard Cure 

 Para of the Amazons as could be. Fine Hard 

 is considerable the best class of rubber in the 

 world, and very superior to ordinary Plantation 

 rubber in tensile strength and power of re- 

 covery, but at the same time as ordinarily sent 

 to market is less clear than Plantation rubber, 

 which was why it often fetched a lower price. 

 To make them a rubber which possessed all the 

 best qualities of Fine Hard cure and the purity 

 of Plantation was the object of this series of ex- 

 periments. From time to time the reports of 

 the examination of these samples prepared in 

 this way have been published in the Bulletin 

 and in the last annual report, but some of these 

 reports did not satisfy the experimenters. How- 

 ever, it appeared clear we were on the right 

 track and the work was carried on, and the pre- 

 sent report now submitted to our readers is a 

 most encouraging one, and shows that we are 

 within a measurable distance of making a very 

 superior class of Rubber equal to Hard Fine Para, 

 but cleaner. Further experiments are in pro- 

 gress and we hope soon to be able to show that 

 Plantation Rubber by proper treatment of the 

 latex can be made equal if not superior in every 

 respect to the finest rubber produced in the 

 Amazons. Further, we do not think that the 

 method employed will prove to be any more ex- 

 pensive than the ordinary making of sheet or 

 crepe but on the contrary may possibly be made 

 even cheaper. 



