Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-10-31
Rubbering in Africa
Continued from page s


tapping paths penetrating each block. Trees
are carefully searched out and counted IN each
block as fast surveyed. until now five hun
dred thousand full bearing trees have been tai
lied with much land still unsearched and hum
dreds of thousands of nature-sown seedlings
coming on.
Tapping is done in the rainy season, which
here means ten tapping months IN the year.
But tapping can be done only when trees are
dry. However. since nearly all the rain falls at
night, treetrunks are usually dry enough tor
tapping by nine o'clock in the morning. The
Taper finishes his tapping shortly after mid
day and brings his days take of latex, of any
where from one to five pounds, to his local sta
ton in the evening, whence it IS carried early
the next morning to the factory at headquarters.
So far the maximum number of tappers used
is about five hundred, the remainder OF the
total of two thousand blacks here employed
being engaged on road and path making, fac
tory labor, clearing land and painting Para
rubber or other crops and on the completion
of headquarters and station buildings.
Since April of last year, about twenty-five
tons have been shipped, thus assuring
total yield this year of not less than seventy
tons, worth in London. in November, 'OS, an
average of at least Jour sh'lllngs pound, or,
gross one hundred and fortv thousand dollars.
which, as nearly as can estimate, IS produced
at total outlay. including new mac hinery,
buildings, and freight duties and adminstra-
tive expenses, of sixty thousand dollars, thus
leaving eighty thousand dollars as profit
total cash capital invested to date not much in
excess of one hundred thousand dollars.
Next year the third with installation of new
machinery factory and station construction.
road making, etc, all finished, the output
should be an increase of fifty to one hundred
per cent on that of this year and expense should
lessen at least twenty-five per cent and can
see reason why after the fourth or fifth year
the forest should not be shipping between one
hundred and fifty and two hundred tons year.
R;o p,o6ts from, Wood
MOREOVER, rubber making expense is sure
AA to continue to decrease through revenue
derived from fuel and timber sales. The forest
is full of superb woods. especially the muvue,
which is much like the best walnut timber, and
nysambia, which closely resembles in appear
ance and quality good beech. While remote
from large markets for profitable shipment IN
wholesale quantities, local demand for timber
and fuel can probably be relied on tor proht
sufficient to cover the heavy cost of mantle
nance of roads and paths through the forest and
to the lake.
Monday morning there arrived at the fac
tory five hundred pounds of latex as the
product of SATURDAYS tree tapping, thin.
milk-white fluid which at the factory is poured
into big tanks; Tuesday, seven hundred pounds,
and Wednesday eight hundred and ninety
pounds came.
Given average good quality in the latex ex-
tracted (and here it produces fifty per cent. IN
net rubber of its gross weight, the profit IN
rubber making lies in its rapid and economical
washing. by which it is cleaned of all foreign
substances, contained resins. etc, its coagula-
ton and pressing into thin sheets or ribbons
which at a glance show BUYERS their absolute
purity in net rubber, its drying smoking and
packing for shipment.
Oddly here, in these equatorial African Jun
giles, whence heretofore rubber has never been
gathered and made except by the most crude.
wasteful, and uncleanly native methods. and
while over ninety per cent of the vast Brazilian,
Central and South American product is even to
this day, after a generation of experience. still
taken and prepared for market by unsuperin-
tended Indians at a waste in one way and an
other of more than third of its value, here IN
Central Africa the last resources of science are
employed to produce chemically pure rubber
at minimum cost.
Generally in Africa and in Central and South
America coa5ulation of the latex is obtained
only by rubbing lime Juice or other acid along
the missions in tree trunks. or by catching the
latex in cups and fetching it to camp. dipping
broad, thin. paddle shaped blades of wood IN
the latex and holding it in the smoke of burn
ing palm nuts until cOagulation is finished, and
repeating this process until thick ham " IS
so accumulated. In both processes no con-
tanned resin is eliminated much bark, dirt. and
even stones are often incorporated in the mass.
and high moisture content remains, leaving
the manufacturer always buying more or less
of pig in a poke and paying freight on a lot of