398 



TheJSupplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



RUBBER IN MALAYA. 



A .New Wkitek: On Speculation, Planting 



Cost of Production, &c. 



Mr WFC Asimont, a recent writer on " Para 

 Rubber in the Malay Peninsula," is very properly 

 severe upon the man who plants up rubber areas 

 merely for the purpose of selling them at a high 

 price to the public. By this time — ami, we 

 venture to think, to some extent with our assis- 

 tance -the investing public are no longer wor- 

 shippers of the fetiah which so many hundreds 

 of thousands of rubber trees on a more or less 

 given area of land represent. But in the earlier 

 days it was comparatively easy to impress not 

 only the public, but men with practical expe- 

 rience in other branches of planting, with the 

 statement that a property of, say, four thousand 

 acres had so many hundreds of thousands of 

 trees, planted in given years, upon it. Even 

 careful people might be led to infer that these 

 trees represented planting over tho whole four 

 thousand acres— working out the number of 

 trees to the stated area. But as a matter of fact 

 the worst vices of the earliest theories of Hevea 

 planting, which meant Heaven only knows how 

 many so-called 'trees' to the acre, were, as often 

 as not, represented by this statement, while, as 

 Mr Asimont points out, -'felling, clearing and 

 planting had been done at a minimum of expense 

 at the greatest possible speed,' and the ultimate 

 position of the company which happened to 

 take over such a property can easily be left to 

 the imagination of the reader. Following, how- 

 ever, upon the lines suggested by our author, 

 the dangers of a rubber property being ill- 

 cleared, ill-planted, ill-equipped, or under- 

 capitalised, are few, and it is a matter of satis- 

 faction for us to record that the majority of Plan- 

 tation Rubber companies in which the public are 

 directly interested more than conform to the 

 writer's minimum requirements. 



Mr Asimont gives an estimate of expenditure 

 upon a 4000-acre plantation from the lirst year 

 until the tenth, when the whole of the area is 

 under rubber in bearing. The estimate does not 

 include original cost of land, flotation expenses 

 and quit rent — these being of such a necessarily 

 variable character that it is impossible to in- 

 clude them in such a statement as the one under 

 review. He plants 20 ft. by 20 ft, (i.e., 108 trees 

 to the acre), planting 1,000 acres the first year, 

 2,000 acres the second and 1,000 acres the third, 

 so that at the end of the tenth year he has 

 132,000 trees in bearing, yielding 864,000 lb. of 

 dry rubber, at a total expenditure (less items ex- 

 cepted above) of £32,783, What the capital of 

 such a company should be, giving a gross income 

 of £121,968 from rubber alone (at 25 cents per 

 lb) is wisely left to the reader's imagination. 

 But this is about the only item which, apart 

 from the trio specifically barred, Mr Asimont 

 does not mention in his estimate ; and we dare 

 swear that thousands of shareholders in Planta- 

 tion Rubber companies will learn from a study 

 of his statement many points in connection with 

 estate expenditure which will enable them in 

 future the better to understand the figures sup- 

 plied in the balance-sheets of the companies 

 they are interested in. — Financier, Aug. 14. 



PLANTAIN FIBRE AT MALAYA 

 A.-H. SHOW. 



Among the exhibits at the recent Agri-Horti- 

 cultural Show were a few specimens of banana 

 fibre which seem to have almost escaped public 

 notice. They were sent by the Forest Depart- 

 ment, and proved to be excellent samples. It 

 may not be generally known that successful 

 experiments of extracting fibre from the plan- 

 tain or banana have been made in the Federated 

 Malay States. Only recently, a gentleman in 

 Tampin (Negri Sembilan) produced a fine speci- 

 men of the fibre from trie wild banana, and, 

 encouraged by the success of his efforts, and, 

 anticipating probably that in the near future the 

 industry may become a new source of agricul- 

 tural wealth in the Peninsula, he has applied 

 to Government for the authority — required by 

 the Forest Laws presumably— to extract the 

 fibre from the wild banana. The wild plantain 

 grows abundantly in the Malay Peninsula, and 

 it seems a pity that such an immense quantity 

 of fibre has hitherto been wasted. As the fibre 

 is also obtainable from the cultivated banana, 

 which is indigenous to the entire Malayan 

 Archipelago, the waste must, of course, be 

 enormous. Applied for no other use, tho fruit- 

 cut stems are thrown away. The fibre extracted 

 is said to be so strong that a fine rope may be 

 made out of it equal to aloe or manila hemp ; 

 and after undergoing the process of dyeing in 

 different colours, it may be turned to account in 

 the manufacture of various kinds of heavy goods 

 such as cords, carpets, rugs and window screens; 

 and may also be as useful a product as ramie has 

 proved to be. Thus, it may not be surprising 

 in course of time to see a species of cloth made 

 from the banana fibre, just as we have seen one 

 manufactured from ramie.— Straits Timcs,Sept. 7. 



ORANGE AND BANANAS IN MEXICO. 



In reporting on the trade and commerce of 

 Tampico, Mr Consul Wilson refers to the advan- 

 tages offered to British emigrants with some 

 knowledge of farming and possessed of a little 

 capital. During last year several hundred 

 colonists, mostly Americans, settled in the dis- 

 trict and are doing well. These colonists have 

 either purchased small tracts of land for farming 

 purposes or have joined one of the numerous 

 colonisation schemes that were started during 

 1907. These colonisation companies have pur- 

 chased large tracts of land which they have 

 subdivided into small lots and sell to colonists 

 on deferred payments. The average price is 

 about £1 per acre. Mr Consul Wilson thinks it 

 doubtful whe 1 her these colonists, mostly small 

 farmers accustomed to do all the work on their 

 farms themselves, will be able to perform hard 

 manual work in the hot weather, but other 

 emigrants with sufficient capital to employ 

 Mexicans would get over that difficulty, 

 and it would seem from the Consul's statement 

 that a very good return upon their capital 

 might with fair fortune be reckoned upon. 



Take for example orange growing. The land 

 round Tampico suitable for this cultivation 

 is all being rapidly bought up. Virgin soil was 

 sold in 1902 for 16s. an acre within five miles 



