7 3 
surprise at the marvellous growth of the trees of Para rubber which 
he had seen in Singapore, Province Wellesley and the Malay 
States. In the paper above cited he writes, tc In No. 23 of the Jour- 
nal d’ Agriculture Tropicale, I remarked the more or less nearly 
approaching exhaustion of the rubber forests of the Amazons. 
In twenty years, ten perhaps, the forests having been all dis- 
covered and exploited, one must foresee a diminution in the return 
of this region which can only keep up its amount of export by means 
of the discovery of new virgin forests and then there will eorqmence 
an era of grand profit for the plantations that are now being made. ” 
Now there is another factor which it seems must threaten the 
Amazon’s product, with a much nearer falling off. It is the very 
low cost oh export of the Asiatic rubber. 
In 1903 Ceylon exported 30,000 Kilograms of rubber which 
fetched a distinctly higher price, than fine smoked Para. One 
might believe that this price is only exceptional and due to the 
manufacturers being anxious to try this new class of rubber, having 
given a favourable price for it. Doubtless this is so to a certain 
extent but when one considers that this rubber dried before export 
loses very little weight in the store that it is produced in the form of 
thin translucent biscuits showing the purity of the product which 
requires a much shorter manipulation. If we consider all these real 
advantages, we see that the increased value of the rubber of culti- 
vated Hevea is quite justified. But the important point is that the 
cost of the shipping of Ceylon rubber to Liverpool is not more than 
2 francs the Kilo., whilst that from Amazonas even if it was exported 
by^the producer in the same condition would cost at least 5 francs 
a Kilo. The difference between these two costs is so great that 
it leaves a margin almost sufficient for any errors of over valuation 
in the calculations for the Ceylon rubber. 
We can thus foresee the day when the plantations in Asia will 
put on the market thousands of tons of a rubber prepared in the 
most careful manner at a much lower price than that of Amazonas 
even if the Brazilian Government lowers considerably the export 
duty on rubber. This, however, is one of its principle sources of 
revenue. This time is not yet very near as the uses of rubber are 
being continually increased, and the Asiatic plantations are not big 
enough yet to produce many thousand tons of rubber. The area 
planted with rubber, chiefly Hevea, in Ceylon is estimated at more 
than 4,0uo hectares (10,000 acres) planted exclusively with rubber 
trees and 10,600 o.. wmcn rubber trees are used as shade 
trees or along edges of roads, ditches, etc., in tea and cocoa planta- 
t , I£ . admit y U !? first ca f there are ;fn average of 500 trees to 
the hectare and in the second 125 to the hectare we shall get a total 
of 3>35°>O0O rubber trees. If we allow according to English writers 
that twice as much is planted in the Malay Peninsula and neighbour- 
ing islands we shall have 6,700,000 rubber trees, altogether ten 
million trees planted up to date. ' - s 
o 
