Rubber plant

“ There are two other rubber-producing plants, neither of which are as important as Hevea and Castilla. One is the common rubber plant so much grown as a house plant and said to be much cherished for that purpose in Brooklyn. It is a kind of fig tree, known as Ficus elastica, a native of India and the source of India rubber. ”

“ Water them as the earth becomes dry, but do not leave standing in half-filled jardinieres, (as people often do,) as much soaking spoils the soil. A good plan for plants of this class is to set them in a pail of warm water and leave for a few hours or over night, about once a week, and then when they become dry in between times, pour water enough around the roots to wet thoroughly.
The rubber plant grows quickly compared with the palm, and requires very little attention. It [122] does best in good soil, and thrives on being set in a half shady place outdoors during the summer. ”

“ With regard to the cultivation side of plantation work, the chief matter on which the planters differ is the business of weeding. Some of them are certain in their own minds that rubber-trees grow best when the ground is quite clear of weeds. Some maintain that perfectly clean weeding is a waste of time and money; they believe in having a clean circle of ground round each tree, and keeping the weeds down on the rest of the land by putting in some variety of dwarf spreading plant. ”

“ The tree has been planted in other countries, but has so far not received much attention. It will grow on a dry sandy soil, dislikes much moisture, and needs no shade.
Forsteronia gracilis of Guiana is a climbing plant which also belongs to the Apocynaceae. Like the Forsteronia floribunda of Jamaica it yields rubber of good quality. Ficus Vogelii of W. Africa yields rubber of variable quality. The production of rubber by this tree merits further investigation, as it grows readily in nearly every district of W. Africa and the Sudan. ”

“ The enormous increase in the commercial demand for rubber and the probability of the continuance of this increase in view of the great variety of purposes to which the material can be applied, has led to great activity in rubber planting in other parts of the world, especially in Ceylon and the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago, where the Para rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis) has been successfully introduced, and numerous plantations, many of which have not been in existence for more than ten or fifteen years, are now contributing to the world’s supply. ”

“ Usually three seeds are placed in each hole, and if two or three germinate, the plant having the healthiest appearance is retained, and the others removed. The possible objections to this method of planting are obvious to those acquainted with field conditions, but in actual practice planting seed “at stake” has often proved highly successful. ”

“ For a long time people thought that rubber trees could not be cultivated. One difficulty in taking them away from their original home to plant is that the seeds are so rich in oil as to become rancid unusually soon. ”

“ The World's Production and Consumption of Rubber — The Para Rubber Tree at Home and Abroad — Propagation — Planting and Cultivating — Soils and Manures — Pests — Latex — Collecting the Latex — Rubber Manufacture — The Antisepticisation of Rubber — Drying and Packing Rubber for Export — Yield of Para Rubber from Cultivated Trees — Establishment and Maintenance of a Para Rubber Plantation — Commercial Value of the Oil in Hevea Seeds. ”

“ MAKING A RUBBER PLANTATION
We have come out to the East, to see for ourselves how rubber is cultivated. And we have chosen to spend most of our little remaining time together in the Malay Peninsula, since this is the country where the largest area of land has been given over to rubber-trees, where many of the finest plantations are situated, and where advanced methods of cultivation and manufacture are most generally practised. ”

“ Groups of botanists, chemists and arboriculturists study constantly tree diseases, methods of increasing the yield, and the other problems of growing fine trees that will produce high grade rubber. Here, by experiment and inspection, the secrets of the rubber tree are being brought to light, so much so that growers look to this plantation for leadership in methods of rubber culture. This great project so far from American soil and in a field so new gives a thrill of pride to the Americans visiting Sumatra on their way around the world. ”

“ The soil and climate along the route are well suited to the cultivation of rubber trees, and considerable areas have recently been cleared of the dense jungle growth and set to young rubber plants. One of my friends who has a rubber plantation north of Singapore says that while rubber is selling now at only $1.50 a pound as compared with $3 a pound a few months ago, there are still enormous profits in the business, as the rubber should not cost over 25 cents a pound to produce. ”

“ LIFE ON A RUBBER PLANTATION
During the time the trees are growing big enough to be tapped, the principal work on a rubber plantation consists of weeding, manuring, and pruning.
The staff consists of a manager, generally spoken of as the planter, two, three, or half a dozen assistants,75 according to the size of the estate, and a number of natives, called “coolies.” The planter, a white man, has his own bungalow. On the big estates such bungalows are large, well-built, convenient residences, of country-seat rank. If the planter is married, his wife probably lives with him. ”

“ To establish a rubber plantation requires very careful planning. The choice of a site is of first importance, for the planter must find a locality having a moist climate with an evenly distributed rain-fall where the temperature throughout the year does not fall below seventy degrees Fahrenheit, and where there is protection from the wind. There must also be, of course, access to a steady labor supply and a convenient shipping port. As the proper climate is a tropical one, there is usually dense jungle to be cleared away. ”

“ A BALATA BLEEDERS’ CAMP. Page 47
From a photograph in the British Guiana Section of the Imperial Institute, by permission
In tapping a rubber-tree, the cut must only go deep enough to open the cells which harbour the sap—which, by the way, in simple English is called “milk,” and in technical language “latex.” These cells are in the bark, extending from just beneath its surface to the cambium, or true outer skin of the wood. If the tapping tool pierces the wood, the tree gets maimed for life. ”

“ Though the growth of the trees is very rapid, sometimes as much as twenty feet in the first year, there are five years of anxious waiting and guarding against winds and disease before they are ready to be tapped and so begin to reward the planters. At first the yield of a tree is only about one-half pound of rubber a year, and this increases so slowly that it is many years before it amounts to as much as ten pounds a year. ”

“ Naturally an absolutely dead and crumbling wood will smoulder, but does not develop sufficient smoke. A green timber will give an acrid and moist smoke, but demands the consumption of a certain amount of dry timber in addition if it is to be used.
Rubber-tree prunings and sawn rubber trees obtained by thinning-out may be used in mixture with dead wood, provided the logs are stacked to dry in the sun for some weeks before use. ”

“ Clean Weeding.—Intimately connected with the growth and development of the rubber tree one has to consider the conditions under which it is allowed to mature. The argument has been used that, since the habitat of Hevea Brasiliensis is in the jungle, we should be proceeding against nature by introducing conditions unlike those under which the “wild” rubber tree grows. It is difficult to treat such an argument seriously, as by quoting parallel instances in arboriculture it could be shown that growth, development, and yields are improved by cultivation of “wild” plants. ”

“ The average dry rubber content varies with climatic conditions, position of the cut on the tree, general health of the tree, etc. On a rainy day the dry rubber content may be lowered too greatly by adventitious circumstances. ”

“ When the seeds are ready to drop the outer covering of the pod bursts with a loud report, the seeds shooting in all directions.
This is Nature's clever scheme to spread the Hevea family. The tree grows wild in the hot, damp forests of the Amazon valley and in other parts of South America that have a similar climate. The ideal climate for the rubber tree is one which is uniform all the year round, from eighty-nine to ninety-four degrees at noon, and riot lower than seventy degrees at night. ”

“ Cases have been known in which the fibrous matter observed in the dry crepe rubber was of such a nature as to indicate that the source might be attributed to leaf-stalks which had passed through the scrap-washer. It is an easy matter to condemn the sorting as being careless, but it is another matter to instil into the mind of factory coolies such a respect for easy and sane precautions that the practice of them will be continued when the eye of the supervisor is not fixed upon the workers. ”

“ In spite of the wonders which rubber has already accomplished, and the adventures, which have colored its history, only the beginning of the romance of rubber has been told. The plantation industry is still in its infancy, and experiments are constantly being made to determine the best methods of planting, the most fruitful number of trees to the acre, the most advantageous way of tapping. In the laboratories of the great rubber manufacturers, scientists are at work improving old methods of using rubber and devising new ones. ”

“ Future Yields per Tree.—It has been shown that by selective methods based on yields, poor trees can be eliminated. Whether by a process of seed-selection or by means of propagation based on bud-grafting and marcotting, it needs no great stretch of imagination to forecast future conditions under which trees may be bred which will be capable eventually of [26] giving an average yield of 25 lbs. per annum over any given area. Yields of 1,000 lbs. per acre per annum should be obtained easily.
Field of Old Rubber Trees in which Thinning had been
delayed too long. ”

“ By good luck the people of South America, Central America, Asia, and Africa, where the varieties of india-rubber, or caoutchouc, producing trees are found, have learned to tap the trees and take care of them and do not kill them for a single harvest. The rubber is the hardened juice of the tree; when it first runs out it is like milk or cream, and hardens very quickly. ”

“ In Africa it seems probable that the production of rubber from vines is likely to be entirely superseded in process of time, and replaced by the plantations of trees which are already being established in those districts in which careful experiment has determined the kind of rubber tree best adapted to the locality. ”

“ Plantation rubber can be very easily sampled and graded, because its form is such that it can be easily handled and seen through. But much of the wild product is sent to market in bulky masses. It is hard work cutting through the samples which are selected to undergo the test of seeing whether they are as good through and through as they are on the surface, or whether they contain any makeweight, such as bits of old iron or rope. ”

“ The better grades of wild rubber, such as Fine Para, were more difficult to break down, but not so difficult as most plantation rubber, because they had already received a preliminary “working” in the process of washing and crepeing, and we have already explained that such treatment takes more power than the crepeing of the soft moist coagulum on the plantations. The amount of “working” or “plasticising” produced in the rubber is connected with the power expended; the greater the expenditure of power, caeteris paribus, the greater the working effect on the rubber. ”

“ At the most it is permissible to unite two or three layers of thin crepe to a thicker one by a single passage through even speed rollers, if the physical properties of the original rubber are to be conserved. ”

“ The need of vulcanising in the process of manufacturing rubber goods became an axiom in pre-plantation days, and it is only quite recently that attempts have been made to utilise raw rubber directly, without vulcanisation, particularly for shoe soles. ”

“ Rubber is the coagulated sap of more than 300 varieties of tropical trees and vines—the Landolphia of Africa, the Ficus of the Malay Peninsula, the Guayule shrub of Mexico and the Castilloa of South America, Central America and Southern Mexico are all important rubber producers, but far more important than all of the others together is the Hevea, a native of Brazil. ”

“ The original instructions to estates regarding the proper employment of this chemical were given in the private reports issued by the Rubber Growers’ Association in 1911. At the present time it is probably accurate to state that it is now used by all estates preparing fine crepes. Representatives [84] of manufacturers have sometimes given us to understand that the question of paleness of colour in such rubber is of no such importance as is impressed upon us as producers. While we are prepared to believe, we can only plead that from our point of view the supply arises from the demand. ”

“ If the timber is too green, steam is formed as well as smoke, and the sheets of rubber may have a moist surface glaze.
Sun-Drying Sheet Rubber.—Among the first curious sights which impress the visitor or newcomer to this country is the spectacle of sheet rubber hanging in the sun on native holdings. From what one has learned of the extraordinary [148] care which must be exercised in all the processes of rubber preparation, one fails to understand how such rubber reaches the market without becoming tacky. ”