Sept. 1, 1900.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRlCULTUElST. 
193 
■ "In Bpite of the rough instruments, which I ns?, 
wheae-ei- you wish it i engage to extract fi-om planw 
ot less thau six mouths, nay of less than three months 
from sowiog, an ivppi-sciable qa.uitity of caoatohous 
and aiipceciable tosucli a point th;\t I ask myself if the 
anuiial cultui-e of oaoutoh ;uc plants wiil notbeiudus- 
trialiy possible. The barii must have been dried as a 
necessary preliminary ; with green or fresh material I 
could not affirm anything. 
"Note that onr processes are based upon the Landol- 
p7iirt« and Hanconiias, I believe without having ex- 
perimented, ihat they may be applied to the Ficu>', 
WillO'-ignheia, Urcrohi, Parameria, Mascarcnha.na C' lj- 
ptostegia, and to all plants which contain fibres of 
caoutchouc in the dry state. 
"And now, here is what we base our process upon. 
The caoutchouc coagulates in the tissues of the plants 
in proportion as they dry, in such away that a parcel 
of bark and roots is nothing but a parcel of very impure 
caoutchouc. I fcis.a question of eliminating the impurities. 
' ."Take a scrap'of bark of Thoi, LauJolphia Hendeloti, 
dry it. When dry, take a mortar and pound the bark 
for a minute. This done pass the whole through a fine 
sieve, ton remove 10 per cent, of dust, rub in your 
hands the broken scrap, there will come out more dust. 
Repeat the operation five or six times and you will 
obtain a "malga" composed of fibres of caoutchouc 
mixed with nardoles of bark. 
"When youhavs pounded it enough you place the 
'malga' in hot w.iter, boihng in the strictest sense, 
but only during a few minutes and you pass the whole 
through a sieve, which will allow the paiticles of bark 
to pass with the water Ro saturated with tanniu that 
this product alone, perhaps, will pay the expenses of 
extraction. 
"You again pound the little mass which remains m 
the sieve; the splashes resulting from the action of the 
postletix themselves on the sides of the mortar and 
may be rem.oved by washing ; after some operation 
you obtain a mass of caoutciiouG still impure, but of 
which the impurities do not reach iO per cent, of the 
weight of the gum. With a little patience one finishes 
by getting rid of all. In order to refine the gum we 
pasi it between cyeliude/s abundantly moistened and 
we obtain perfect caoutchouc. This is a laboratory 
expsiiun-iit 'which I will make under the eyes of your 
r alersif they ask it of me; the treatment by the ton 
p^r day necessitates apparatus which we shall see 
p.-oduced shoitiy. 
"ihe Lancloli)ki-% Hendelotii Ri^e easily 6, 7, 10, 15 
per cent, of their weight dry (bark); I take but 7 per 
cent, as an aveiago. In this way 10,000 kilos of baik 
would give 700 kilos of caoutchouc. I estimate the price 
of bark at 100 francs per ton on the spot, the e.xpauses 
of exU'actiou at 70 francs per 70 kilos ; we obtain 
then 70 kilos for 170 francs. Oar pmcess is applicable 
every where, it requires but primi ive appliauces for 
small operations aud if one does not wish to push tHe 
cleansing to the end. 
"As for the mode of operating with creepers which 
grew again when cut, here is the experiment which I 
invite planters to make. 
•'Let them divide their concession into 10 equal lots, 
cut aiul treat by our process all the creepers which 
grow in lot No. 1 from the first year, and renew the 
operation in the following years in the other lots. They 
will thus have ten cuttings, which will give them such 
results that they will not hesitate to take care of their 
creepers and increase tbem. 
"1 engage to obtain in a single treatment of the 
richest creeper ten times more gam than could be 
oataiued by tappings. Note that we do not only treat 
creepers which are fit for tapping, but the feeblest, 
since the plants of a few months give already an 
appreciable partofgnm. 
"When L'-mdolphia is dealt with, the manipulation 
is hard enough, the fibrous bark not breaking without 
protest ; but with Hajiconiia spcciosa, it is easy. That 
bark does not contain more than 5 or 6 per cent, ot 
caoutchouc ; that at least, is what I have obtained by 
primitive process ; but the bark is very friable reducing 
" to powder almost instantly under the pestle, The gum 
Clisengages with very sraall effort, 
"I cannot find a better comparison as regards the 
process thau with the extraction of gold from quartz. 
Gold exists in all parts in the quartz as caoutchouc 
exists in the dry plant where it is coagulated. Break 
the quartz, break the bark, eliminate and separate the 
gold and the caoutchouc ; tUere, in two words, is all the 
operation." — Indian Gardeninq. 
PRODUCE AND PL.ANTjNG, 
Ths Tea Trade of Russia. — Through the Foreign 
Office, the Board of Trade have received a copy of a 
despatch from the British Commercial Agent it Sc. 
Petersburg, in reference to tea. "It states that the con- 
sumption ct Ceylon teas is increasing in Russia. Much 
tea comes to Odessa, though mostly in transit to Mos- 
cow, where it pays duty. Some 7 500,000 funts (1 funt 
equals 14i oz) of tea were cleared at Odessa last year, . 
much more thau in 1898, thus showing that Odessa is 
gradually becoming a big tea market at the expense 
of Moscow, which hitherto mon .polised all the tea 
trade of Russia. MoscoAV, as the great tea distributing 
centre of Russia, is much concerned by present events 
in China. According to local papers, big tea firms 
are buying up all supplies possible. Large quantities 
of black tea are en route, partly by the Volunteer 
Fleet s'eamers, "Kherson" and "Yaroslav" the former 
from Colombo, the latter from Singapore. Private 
telegrams say the stocking of reserves at Hangkow is 
impossible, as also the Kiakhta route while two com- 
panies decline insuring. Large stocks have been 
brought up, but without facilitie.s as yet for shipment. 
The St Petersburg dealers, it is said, have met together 
to consider the arivisabiiiiy of raising prices for retail 
sale, and rumours say they are inviting the co-opera- 
tion of Moscow firms. Hankow and Foochow, 
especially the former, are the chief markets 
for Russia's purchase of tea Of 1,511,000 
poods of Bohea imported into Russia in 1898 
over 1 ,000,000 came via Odessa. The remainder, as 
also almost all brick and cake tea, for the prepara- 
tion of which Russian firms have constructed special 
establishments at Hankow, Kiau-Chang, and Foo- 
cinw, came overland via Irkutsk. 1,106,000 poods of 
brick tea and 34,200 of cake tea were imported by 
this route in 1898. The prt-sent disturbances affect 
the most important point of the tea trans)!ort routes 
to Russia. According to the Commercial a7id la- 
(histrial Gazette of St. Petersburg the amount of 
tea exported fiom C^dna to Russia in 1899 was ia 
piculs (1 picul equi'.ls li}.3 lb) as follows: 
lilack. Green. Brick, &c. Total 
Via Odessa .. l.-^9.761 5.698 — 195,449 
Via Kiakha .. 107,14a — 340,628 537,771 
To i\U3siau Alan- 
churia .. 29,357 29,030 78,266 133,653 
The Effect ok Cheap Tea. — Tea growers have con- 
sidered that tneir lor, when compared with the dig- 
tributor, is not exactly a happy one, and they have 
looked with envy upon the profits of the large tea 
dealing firms, J-!ufc these latter have their ups and 
downs. At a recent meeting of the National Tea 
Union, which has not had a successful year, and con- 
sequently could not pay a dividend on its ordinary 
shares, Mr. A. J. Slaney, the managing director, in 
the course of his speech on the directors' report, 
said : " The last three years, including the one just 
closed to June 30th, have been trying years for the 
tea trade in particular. With the e.Kception of a few 
concerns, whose efforts have been mainly directed 
towards the exploitation of their proprietary lines 
without the slightest thought or oars for the interests 
of the retailer, I do not think many wholesale firn-.s 
in our trade have done really well. That which 
aft'ects us so much is the extraordinary craze for 
cheapness, and English ladiev seem nearly all tarred 
with the same brush, delighting to boast what beauti- 
ful tea they buy at Is 2,1, Is 4d, and Is 6d per lb 
retail. Well, with a sixpenny duty to come off, carri- 
age, mauipulatica, packing, A'c, the margin is vejy 
emaU indeed when a really good article is guppljed» 
