AGRICULTURAL BULLETIN 
’ OF THE 
STRAITS 
AND 
FEDERATED MALAY STATES. 
No. 4.] APRIL, 1905. [Vol. IV. 
DECLINE IN RUBBER. 
Yield in various parts of the World. 
The rapid disappearance of wild rubber in many parts of the 
world is becoming more and more striking as years go by. The 
heavy demand for rubber of all sorts has nearly exhausted all the 
accessible forests of wild rubber plants. In nearly all cases, the 
rubber collector quite destroys the tree or creeper, so that, should the 
forests be even full of seedlings, it will be a very long time before 
these are fit to produce rubber. Moreover, the destruction of the 
plants means the destruction of the seeds, as few or no seed-bearers 
are left. It is in this way that several other jungle-products have 
been almost or quite exterminated. The rubber trade has been 
living almost exclusively on jungle rubber, and has attained thus 
enormous proportions. Now comes a still greater increase of demand 
and a very rapid failure of supply. Some recent rubber statistics 
published in the India Rubber World (February 1st, 1905), show this 
collapse of the world supply very clearly 
Thus, the export of rubber from Burmah in 1892-1893 was 
I, 116,864 pounds, decreasing to 1,038,240 in 1895, with a sudden 
drop to 801,248 in 1896, and a steady decline to 200,704 pounds in 
1903-1904. 
In Bolivia, in 1900, 7,691,728 pounds were exported, with a rapid 
steady decline to 2,906,274 in 1903. 
British Central Africa exported in 1901 -1902, 14,393^ pounds, 
II, 723 next year, and last year, 4,262. Southern Nigeria, in 1901’ 
1,740,156 pounds; in 1903, 1,177,803. 
Portuguese East Africa seems to have increased a little, but the 
amount exported is small, and there is an increase in impure cooked 
rubber and a diminution in better grades. 
In British Honduras, there has been a steady fall from 55,331 in 
1 899 to 22,176 in 1903. 
