380 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Nov., 1897. 
The shares were not subscribed for, and yet the reports of experts pointed to 
profits of something like 80 to 50 per cent. Here area few striking paragraphs 
from the prospectus :— 
“ According to Her Majesty’s Foreign Office reports, the consumption of 
India-rubber by six countries now exceeds one hundred million pounds (Ib.) 
per annum, worth in the market about ten million pounds _ sterling 
(£10,000,000) ; within the past eighteen months the price of rubber has risen 
enormously, as it is absolutely indispensable for cycle tyres, motor cars, cabs, 
and various other industries. It is a well-known fact that the consumption of 
rubber in the manufacture of cycle tyres alone has reached prodigious 
proportions; and according to many competent authorities the supply of the 
raw material does not equal the demand. It is estimated that there are in 
England over one thousand cycle factories to-day, working at full pressure, 
and last year there were registered in London alone cycle and motor 
corporations giving a total capital of £19,898,000. Messrs. Bagot and 
Anderson estimate that there are at least four hundred and fifty thousand 
(450,000) trees yielding rubber on the property proposed to be acquired by 
this company, and the directors contemplate making arrangements to plant a 
large number of additional trees, thereby providing for a future continuous 
supply. A very large proportion of the rubber, at present being shipped from 
West Africa, is taken from the district in which this property is located. 
“As it is estimated that there are some 450,000 trees on the property 
at present bearing rubber, and as an average rubber-tree yields a minimum 
supply of three pounds of India-rubber annually, from which, at the very low 
estimate of 2s. per lb. (and marketable rubber is now selling at about 3s, 6d. 
per Ib.), a gross revenue should be earned from India-rubber for the first year 
of the company’s operations of £135,000 (vide report of George Bagot). The 
supply from an India-rubber tree is stated to increase 1 Ib. per tree per 
annum for several years after the first year’s tapping. Consequently, from 
the 450,000 trees the revenue for 1898 should be about £180,000 gross, again 
assuming that rubber realises only 2s. per 1b. on the market in 1898. Market- 
able rubber is now selling on an average at about 3s. to 8s. 6d. per Ib., so that 
in quoting 2s. per lb. the directors are placing a very low estimate on the sale 
price. Itis the general opinion that the price will still further advance, and 
the Press quotations given hereafter confirm this belief.” 
There can be little doubt that West Africa rivals the valley of the Amazon 
asa home for rubber; but year by year the goose that yields the golden 
harvest is being used up; and if the demand, as seems likely, goes on increasing, 
we do not see that planters should be discouraged from putting in rubber, 
more especially as a by-product where they have plantations already formed of 
tea, coffee, or cacao, or even coconuts, as their staple. 
FACTS ABOUT RUBBER. 
The Life of a Rubber-tree.—The New York World notices three young 
rubber-trees transplanted from the forest to a cultivated field in Soconusco, 
Mexico, which at the time of writing (1892) were 7 feet in diameter, and 
had yielded rubber for more than thirty-five years, the then product averaging 
more than 50 Ib. of gum per year. 
Productiveness—Mr. Rowland W. Cater, writing of rubber-trees in 
Nicaragua, says that the average increase in production is generally estimated 
at 1 1b. of rubber for each year of the tree’s life up to a certain age, which he 
was unable to fix. 
Milk Production —Trees tapped in the wet season yield five times ag 
much milk as in the dry. Sixty per cent. of the milk ought to be turned into 
rubber. A good coagulating agent is 1 oz. of alum in 16 oz. of water. A 
weak solution of alcohol will give even better results. 
