November, 1909.] 



393 



Saps and Exudations. 



must be much land planted to rubber 

 to-day which ultimately will be cleared 

 off for another crop to which it is better 

 adapted. 



The chief reson for warning, however, 

 relates to the question of profits. Take 

 the Vallambrosa Rubber Company, Ltd., 

 for example. There is a company formed 

 without the agency of the promoter. 

 The owners of three plantations already 

 in existence five years ago "pooled" 

 their interests and formed a limited 

 company, dividing among themselves a 

 certain number of shares, and admitting 

 a few personal friends, with a view to 

 gaining a little needed additional work- 

 ing capital. The total share issue to 

 date is £50,000 ( = $243,325). The Vallam- 

 brosa company were able in their first 

 year to market rubber, and during four 

 years they have sold 694,078 pounds, for 

 enough to return to the owners £95,000 

 in dividends, besides which they have 

 the plantation. Being organized solely 

 as a rubber-planting company, all their 

 energies have been devoted to this one 

 object, and each year has shown progress 

 in the direction of economy in the pro- 

 duction of rubber, as well as an improve- 

 ment in its quality. 



A dividend of 80 per cent, sounds 

 large ; no doubt this year still larger 

 dividends will be recorded. Bnt it must 

 be kept in mind that the only 80 per 

 cent, company to date is practically a 

 private company, capitalized by its 

 actual owners on a conservative valu- 

 ation of their properties before their 

 yielding capacity was known or sus- 

 pected. In other words, the "Vallam- 

 brosa " enterprise was capitalised practi- 

 cally at cost, by cautious Scotch business 

 men dealing with their own property. 

 How about the newest companies? 

 Have the twenty-four July corpor- 

 ations, with an averaged capitalization of 

 £54,877, any basic properties comparable 

 with those which were at the bottom 

 of the Vallambrosa enterprise ? Some 

 of them even have no rubber planted 

 yet. Suppose that, some day, they 

 should be equally successful in growing 

 rubber, what assurance have the public — 

 the owners of the new companies— of 

 80 per cent, dividends, or 10 per cent., or 

 any dividends at all ? 



Account must be taken, in this connec- 

 tion, of the promoters— a class of gentle- 

 men who do not appear to have figured 

 in the Vallambrosa organization, but 

 who must, wherever they do appear, be 

 compensated before the public gets a 

 sight of the profits. The Amazon news- 

 paper we quote is right in describing 

 the English attitude toward rubber just 



now as a " fever." The same view 

 evidently is taken by the London 

 Financial Neios, which, while warmly 

 commending rubber culture in general, 

 says in a recent issue that if rubber were 

 to have a sharp fall, many of those who 

 have been so eager to invest in planting 

 companies " would madly rush into the 

 market and sell their snares," without 

 stopping to find out whether they were 

 really worth holding. 



YIELD OP RUBBER. 



(Prom the India Rubber Journal, Vol. 

 XXXVII., No. 4, February, 1909.) 



We have been asked to give publicity 

 to our opinions on the probable yields of 

 rubber from Para trees planted in the 

 East, in order to enable our readers to 

 gain an insight into the differences in 

 ultimate profits from estates in the 

 Indo-Malayan region. Such a request is 

 easy to make, but the satisfaction of 

 same necessitates the publication of 

 many details. The yield of rubber not 

 only varies according to fertility of soil 

 and climatic factors, but is also to be 

 atributed, in part, to the system of 

 weeding and tapping adopted, to the 

 age of the trees, and the age and thick- 

 ness of the primary and subsequently 

 formed bark. 



Para trees may generally be expected 

 to give larger yields as they grow older, 

 but this is obviously not always the 

 case if one may take the records of some 

 planting companies during the last 

 three years as correct. In one or two 

 instances the decline in yield per tree 

 per annum is due to trees having been 

 excessively tapped on a bad system in 

 the first year ; in other cases the roots 

 of the trees have undergone decay in 

 consequence of their being always in 

 contact with brackish water ; in others 

 we know that on permanently closely- 

 planted estates the roots of the trees 

 after the seventh or eighth year have 

 not been able to obtain adequate food 

 supplies, owing to the superficial soil 

 being already packed with roots, and 

 that below the first foot being poor in 

 avilable plant food. 



Many estates which have shown a 

 conspicuous rise in annual output during 

 the last three years are known. In 

 these instances there has been a gradual 

 increase in size of the trees, the vitality 

 of the plants has shown no appreciable 

 decline, the soil conditions have been 

 improved, there are indications that, 

 with still further economies in manage- 

 ment and improvement in collecting and 

 preparation, the yields of the past will 



