Dec. 1, 1902.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
401 
able number of trees to the acre, and the 
acreage of the estate is known : hence— and 
here the calculation -.■an into thousands. Even 
when the cautious had allowed 25 a~ye and 50 
percent for contingencies, wiiat a smack of 
fat things' still remained ! Alas! the sequel. 
But there is less chance of rubber being over- 
done ; albeit in every countryeof the habi- 
table globe where the tree can b grown, men 
of all races are today devoting thought and 
time to its cultivation; while the hovering 
shadow of chemical research bent on find- 
ing a substitute for rubber, is a little dis- 
quieting when we recall the fate of indigo. 
Other .Sabrjidiary Products Pepper, Nut- 
megs, Vanilla, Annatto, Croton and such 
like minor ones, all increase the revenue of 
estates at little cost, aud are each worthy 
of attention. None of them, perhaps, is usable 
as a crutch ; but", valuable as a staff. Wnat 
each man has to do is to find what he 
snould select as the best adjunct to his 
primary culture ; and, remembering that 
Agriculture and especially Tropical Agri- 
culture, is subject to many ups and downs, — 
stick to his subsidiary products till the 
dark days pass and be ready to profit by 
the bright ones when they dawn, which 
they surely will do sooner or later. Ceylon 
may have produced many disappointments ; 
but it knows nothing of despair. 
,> 
rORTUNEh IN RUBBER. 
HOW AN AMERICAN FINANCIAL PAPER 
REGARDS THE PROBLEM. 
One ot the American financial papers, namely, " i'he 
Daily Pinanoiil News," of New Yoik, has a Ions; article 
on American enterprise in exploiting protitahle rubber 
fields. This article contains a considerable portion of 
f»ict, but, when it comes to calculating the prices ob- 
t.iinod for rubber it is very much out. Pur what it ia 
worth, we quote it here : — ■ 
'' lilexico ia full of opportunities for enterprise and 
capital. The surest, cleanest and often the qaickest 
fortunes are those made by, the intelligent develop- 
ment of the uncultivated resources of nature. " There 
is in the eastern and southern part of Mexico a long, 
irregular strip of land 15 or 20 miles wide, which has a 
soil as fertile as any in the world, and it is in this strip 
of land that the rubber trees thrive. Another fact that 
makes opportunity for Americana is that this rich 
territory, which was once almost inaccessible, ia now 
reached by railroads which have been built through 
subsidies from the American Government " By their 
oi'ude methods the natives killed the trees which gave 
them a livelihood. Moreover, the native method tended 
to inferior rubber far from clean. For such crude rubber 
the natives got about 20 cents per lb. Then came the 
Americans with intelligent businesg metho<1s. In the 
first place, it was obvious that, inasmuch as the supply 
of trees had been reduced through their destruction by 
the natives, the first step should be to plant m ire trees. 
Immense nurseries were started, the young, broad- 
Itafed plants looking like fields of tobacco. The shoots 
are set out 400 to the acre. When they hive started 
on a strong, assured growth they are thinned out, 
usually at six years old, and 200 are left st'!.,nding. Each 
tree that is cut down at this stage will produce about 5 
lb of rubber wortli 70 cynts, so that in this process of 
development each aero produces ^700. In some cases 
trees are tapped for rubber milk when they are four 
years old, 400 5 ouug trees, tapped by native methods, 
yieUliug 44: lb, worth S30'80 at each tapping. It is usu- 
ally oousidered advisable, however, to wait until ihe 
sixth or even the eighth year before beginuiug to draw 
the rubber milk. The bark ia cut carefully, a-ad only a 
limited quantity of the milk is taken at a time, so that 
the tree is not injured and its growth not in the least 
retarded. From an eight-year old tree i lb of rubber 
a year may be safely taken. When there are 200 trees 
to the acre the pro met of each acre a year would be20O 
lb of rubber, worth |14'). This would be obtiined 
without any expense or labour in maintaining or caring 
for the trees, the only work being the tapping. 
Enormous I'ossiBiUTiEa. — A man owning 100 
acres would thus receive .^14,000 a year income. 
But rubber trees grow rapidly, and as they increase 
in size the quantity of the rubber milk which they 
will produce grows in an equal rapid ratio. A tree 
nine years old will give If lb. of rubber ; a tree ten 
years old, 2J lb. in the same time ; a tree fifteea 
years old will produce 5 lb. a year, so that 1 acre 
will yield 1,000 lb., worth |700, and the product of 
100 acres would be worih |70,000. The enormoua 
possibilities of the rubber business have led investors 
to buy large tracts of rubber land in Mexico, in- 
cluding Senator Clark, of Montana. Those who 
have bought rubber lands in Mexico have paid small 
prices. The land was formerly owned by native 
plantation owners, who did not cultivate it, being 
too indolent or too ignorant to develop its re- 
sources. 
Rdbbbh foe Market. — "American ingenuity haa 
devised several new methods for getting rubber ready 
for the market. The milkia drawn from the bark by 
auction, so that the pure sap is obtained free from the 
grit, bark, and foreign substances which were always 
presect in such large quantities in the rubber sold by 
natives. After the rubber milk is obtained the pure 
rubber is separated from the other ingredients ot the 
sap, in much the same way that cream is separated 
from milk, by a patent process. In the new method 
introduced and practised by the Americans there is no 
waste of sap. By the natives half of it is wasted. 
W hen the rubber is coagijlated it is tied up in bales 
and shipped to New York, where it sells at from 75 
cents to $ 1 a lb. and the total expense of extracting it, 
separating and coagulating it, and shipping it to the 
Eastern market, is not more than 5 cents a lb. This 
shows enormous profit." — India Ihthher Trades' Journal 
Oct. 13. 
EXTIIACTION OF RUBBER FEOM BARK. 
The question of extracting rubber from the 
bark of certain rubber trees has repeatedly been 
sugjjested and experimented upon. So far, little 
success appears to have been achieved. 
It certainly does not strike one as a very 
difficult matter to devise a process for the 
extraction of the rubber from a bark which really 
contains a fair amount of it. But it is certainly 
impossible to devise such a process without any 
direct reference to be operated upon. In other 
words, a tliorougli chemical examinatioQ of 
the bark in question is the first step 
to be taken. Farther, there may be a 
large quantitj' of rubber in the bark, but 
it is most likely accompanied by a considerable 
proportion of resinous matter, the separation of 
which from the rubber would be quite as im- 
portant as the elimination of the bark, Otherwise 
it niiglit be found that the rubber extracted is of 
such inferior quality as to be almost valueless 
commercially. This, to a large extent, is what 
has been found in the various attempts of 
extracting gutta pcrcha from the leaves of the 
gutia trees. 
The resin accompanying the rubber in the dif- 
ferent rubber trees varies very considerably iu 
properties, and unless these are known it is quite 
impossible to give any directions as to their 
separation from the rubber. If the amount of 
