121 



GUMS, RESINS, SAPS AND EXUDATIONS. 



Area under Rubber in Ceylon. 



A very good answer to those who are claiming that Malaya is the premier 

 rubber-planting country is supplied by the statistics just to hand for the new 

 Edition of Ferguson's " Ceylon Handbook and Directory," which show that the 

 Ceylon area in rubber, or to be planted during this present south-west monsoon 

 (and consequently probably nearly all planted by now), is no less than 104,000 

 acres, besides which there are probably 15,000 or 10,000 in native hands, amounting 

 in all to 120,000 acres. Mr. Carruthers' report on the Federated Malay States 

 for 1905 shows that at the end of that year they had only 38,000 acres planted 

 in rubber with about 100,000 acres alienated for this product, and it is h irdly likely 

 that they can have planted the difference since. Even allowing that the Ceylon 

 estimate is too much by 25,000 acres and the Malayan too small by the same amount, 

 and allowing another 25,000 acres for the rubber in the Straits Settlements and 

 Johore, will not make the figures meet. 



It must be pointed out also, that if planting is to go on at this rate, 

 it will not be long before the time of overproduction and low prices arrives. 

 Already Ceylon alone contains perhaps enough for nearly one-quarter of the 

 world's consumption, 



J. C. WILLIS. 



The Truth about Rubber Culture. 



By, Dr. Pbhr Olsson-Sbffer. 

 uses op rubber. 



There are at present about one hundred rubber plantations in Mexico 

 alone representing over $50,000,000, most of it American capital. It has been feared 

 that when all these plantations are in full bearing there will be an excess of rubber 

 in the market. If we estimate that these plantations have 20,000,000 trees, they 

 would produce at ten years of age according to usual expectations twenty million 

 pounds of crude rubber. Today the manufacturers of the United States use no less 

 than 60,000,000 pounds annually. The Mexican plantations thus would supply only 

 one third of the needs of this country, provided ten years old trees yield one pound 

 of rubber, which they do not. It is much safer to estimate a 50 per cent lower yield. 



Another objection raised against the safe future of rubber cultivation is 

 the possibility of the discovery of a substitute for rubber, manufactured synthet- 

 ically. It can be assumed that some chemist will succeed in developing some kind 

 of substitute, or in discovering a process of synthetically producing rubber. But 

 would this ruin the industry of rubber culture '? Has diamond mining suffered from 

 the discovery of making artificial diamonds? Has sugar cultivation become 

 unnecessary because substitutes for sugar can be produced in the chemical laboratory 

 or in the factory? Is wheat growing a hazardous enterprise because some scientists 

 may discover a process for artificial production of the foodstuffs obtained from 

 grains of wheat ? Let us suppose that somebody succeeded in producing rubber 

 from turpentine or from some other organic raw material. It is not likely that 

 turpentine or any other similar raw material could be produced much cheaper 

 than crude rubber, which is a natural product of tropical plants cultivated with 

 the cheap labour of tropical countries, and extracted and prepared with modern 

 machinery under supervision of modeim science. 



