December, 1911.] 



493 



Saps and Exudations. 



These plantings represent several 

 thousand trees, in every variety of soil. 

 A careful record of growth i^ kept and 

 the future planter will thus have a 

 remarkable fund of exact information 

 tod taw from before selecting land and 

 putting in seed. 



The Department of Agriculture is 

 nothing if not thorough, and it has not 

 only planted Para rubber at its own 

 stations, but at the stations of the 

 Department of Lands and Mines as well. 

 To-day, therefore, at Tui maturmai i, 

 Itaki, Arrawak-Matope, Arakka and 

 Towakaima Para trees are growing, and 

 it has been established that the upper 

 reaches of the great rivers and the 

 interior forest land are well adapted 

 for Para cultivation. 



Planters have also taken, of late, con- 

 siderable interest in Para planting. On 

 the sugar estates many experiments 

 have been tried, and on the higher 

 reaches the trees are doing very well. 



Already one estate on the Demerara 

 river has produced Para at the rate of 

 3 lbs. per tree, tapping only three months 

 of the year. 



The coagulating method is a compro- 

 mise between that in use in the Middle 

 East and in Brazil. It consists in coagul- 

 ating by acetic acid and then smoking, 

 only instead of the Urucuri palm nut 

 they use the ftuit of the Cokerite palm. 



The department estimates that about 

 1,000 acres are now planted to Hevea 

 bt asiliensis, and this area is very rapidly 

 being increased. They estimate also for 

 drained lands a cost of about $70 per 

 acre for the first year and thereafter $25 

 per year for upkeep. On higher land 

 the initial cost is $48 per acre. 



The rainfall in the colony is all that 

 could be desired for rubber planting, and 

 one can get it in almost any quantity 

 desired and well distributed, lc varies 

 from 92 inches on the Essiquibo river to 

 268 inches in the North- West District. 



The shipping of rubber from British 

 Guiana is surrounded by a certain 

 amount of red tape that makes some of 

 the new arrivals rather restive. The 

 course of producer is about this. The 

 shipper goes to the Custom House and 

 gets a supervisor to weigh the lot. 

 Receiving a memo of the weight he pro- 

 ceeds to the Lands and Mines Office to 

 get permission to release the rubber and 

 also to secure a royalty blank. Then 

 follows a visit to the Treasury Depart- 

 ment to pay the royalty. The receipt 

 for payment is then taken back to the 

 Custom House for endorsement. Then 

 come two shipping bills which must be 

 officially signed, After this is the secur- 



ing of the consular invoice and the 

 submission of all of the documents of 

 the steamship company. Then follows 

 the wait until the cargo is discharged 

 before the bill of lading is signed, and 

 then the rush to mail it by the same 

 steamer that carries the rubber. It 

 is true that tew errors occur, and the 

 duty on rubber is very low, only two 

 ceuts per pound, but if one official could 

 be empowered to do all of the signing, 

 and the steamship companies would 

 unbend a bit, it would greatly facilitate 

 matters and be much appreciated by 

 rubber exporters. 



Professor Harrison told me of a very 

 amusing instance of planters' generosity 

 in the Middle East, He had sent for 

 some Hevea seeds, giving the most 

 minute directions as to their packing 

 and shipment. For example, he speci- 

 fied a parcel's post package of eleven 

 pounds, containing 500 seeds not closely 

 packed with just a little ventilation, 

 etc. The shipper, however, found that 

 the postal cost for 800 seeds would be 

 just the same, so he put in the extra 300, 

 soldered them up tight to prevent 

 "shucking" and sent them along. Of 

 course they fermented, and when they 

 were opened drove everybody away by 

 their fearful stench. 



I forgot to mention in writing of the 

 Sapium J enmani, that Professor Harri- 

 son in experimenting fiuds that the latex 

 develops resiu when the tree is tapped 

 continuously. The first and second 

 tapping give excellent rubber, the third 

 is slightly sticky, while the fourth and 

 fifth are decidedly resinous. 



Referring again to balata, the whole 

 business has been beautifully system- 

 atized since the formation in 1910 of the 

 Consolidated Rubber and Balata Estates. 

 Limited. This Company acquired 387 

 balata licenses and has greatly increased 

 the output. There are some half-dozen 

 lesser compauies operating in balata, and 

 about tweuty that are really planting 

 Para r ubber, with prospects of a great 

 many more in the near future. 



THE RUBBER INDUSTRY AND THE 

 EXHIBITION. 



A Record op Wonderful Progress. 



(From the Indian Trade Journal, Vol. 

 XXII., No, 278, July 27, 1911.) 

 Surely it seldom falls to the lot of a 

 writer to discuss within the brief period 

 of three years two more interesting 

 exhibitions than those devoted to the 

 use and growth of rubber in all its 

 phases at Olympia in 1908 and at Isling- 



