American; American airmen are quite to the front, with "Lindy" leading; advertising is a great American trait; so, it seemed most appropriate for the June issue of a rubber magazine to feature a picture of Colonel Lindbergh and his airplane with this caption:

"RUBBER INSURED LINDY'S SAFETY."

Then came, in smaller type, this explanation: "Gasoline and oil feed lines were encased in soft, elastic tubing to absorb dangerous vibration. Other rubber accessories, in addition to Silvertown tires, were landing-gear shock absorbers, and an inflatable rubber aircraft." A clever bit of timely advertising which certainly stressed the importance of rubber! The world need of rubber is well appreciated at present. Farsighted men realized some years ago that more rubber was needed than could be produced from the Brazilian forests under existing circumstances.

RUBBER REGIONS.

Rubber will grow wherever there is a very warm, moist climate not frequented by high winds. That means, of course, in the tropics. Geographers picture a rubber belt around the earth, thirty degrees each side of the equator. The bulk of the best rubber grows in an inner belt about ten degrees north and ten south of the equator. That inner belt includes the wild rubber forests of Brazil and the plantations of Malay and the Dutch East Indies.

BRAZIL.

For years, Brazil was the greatest source of rubber. Valuable rubber trees grew wild in the forests of Brazil along the banks of the Amazon river. This rubber is commonly known as Para, after the town of Para from which large quantities were, and still are, exported yearly. The Brazilian rubber forests are located from eight hundred to twelve hundred miles from the mouth of the Amazon river, in a dense tropical jungle, where rubber gathering is a dangerous business. Few white men care to live in this tropical climate; native labor

is limited, unskilled, and difficult to obtain; transportation is, at all times, a problem; all of which greatly reduces the actual output of Brazil's immense rubber potentiality.

The rubber trees are scattered among many other kinds in the forests, and the rubber gatherer must hack his way through miles of dense jungle to find the trees. The river is the only highway, so the sap can be gathered only from the trees near the river, since the gatherer must return each night to his camp. Another disadvantage is that the Amazon country has a rainy season which lasts half the year, thus hindering the rubber output, since much of the jungle is actually flooded for months.

It is hard to get rubber gatherers there, because life in the jungle is lonely and dangerous, as the men are compelled to work far from their families and friends, in constant danger from wild beasts, reptiles and fevers. Also, the rubber so obtained is not always clean or of high quality. There are millions of rubber trees yet untapped in Brazil. In fact, of the three hundred millions, only about one per cent have been tapped. It was no shortage of rubber supply that caused the transfer of the world's rubber source. Rather it was these unfavorable conditions of lack of skilled labor, unhealthful living conditions, and distance from ports.

WICKHAM'S EXPERIMENT.

It is a coincidence that coffee became a staple product of Brazil at about the time that the rubber trade shifted to the Middle East. To be sure, it was the ruination of the coffee crop of India by a blight that spurred on the scientific investigations and experiments with rubber in the East. Wickham believed that rubber could be made to take the place economically of the blighted coffee crop there. He also saw that there were difficulties that would keep the wild crop of Brazil from keeping pace with the growing demand. Wickham got his idea of planting rubber trees in India at about the same time that men in America began to experiment with the automobile. Mechanical experts claim that automobiles could never

have become the swift, comfortable vehicles of today without pneumatic tires. Brazil, under present circumstances, could never have hoped to supply the demand of the automobile industry, but the Far East plantations were ready, and Wickham's experiment was proven a great success. He took the seeds from Brazil to the Botanical Gardens in Kew, England. When they were partly grown, he took them to Ceylon, where he planted them in the open, in rows, with a view to convenience in tapping.

RUBBER IN THE FAR EAST.

These grew and flourished, and, after five years, were tapped. These plantations spread to Malaya, Sumatra, Java and Borneo. Today rubber plantations cover an area of 3,000,000 acres, with a yearly output of 360,000 tons, Twenty years ago Brazil produced practically all the rubber used in the world, while today she produces less than one-tenth. Such has been the progress of plantations!

The principal countries producing plantation rubber are: Malaya, Dutch East Indies, Ceylon, India, Sarawak, French Indo-China, British North Borneo, Siam, and various parts of Africa. The chief centers of wild rubber production are: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Central America, and parts of Africa. All these countries are within the "rubber belt."

The British control about 80 per cent of the rubber plantations, while we control only 3 per cent of the entire plantations; despite the oft quoted fact (misleading to some people) that the United States Rubber Company owns the largest single rubber plantation in the world.

Perhaps a description of this will show the great superiority of this plantation growing over jungle production. In this plantation on the island of Sumatra is an orchard of rubber trees,-laid out and cared for as carefully as a fruit orchard in America. It is about the size of the District of Columbia and employs twenty thousand men to care for its five million trees. The company has erected good houses, provided plenty of well-cooked food, schools, hospitals, recrea

tions, and good sanitary conditions. The laborer is healthy and happy, and consequently efficient. Groups of botanists, chemists and arboriculturists are constantly studying the trees here, to increase the yield and decrease tree diseases. It is wholly under modern and scientific management. However, it is a tremendous undertaking. The site has to be well chosen, with even temperature and rainfall; the soil has to be tested; there has to be protection from wind; the dense jungle has to be cleared away, wholly or in part (as the need of "clean clearing" is still a mooted question); there must be a steady labor supply and a convenient shipping port. Even after the trees are planted, they have to be guarded from wind and disease before they are ready to tap. Various methods of tapping are used in different places, and experiments are being made constantly to increase the yield and improve the quality.

OUR INTEREST IN RUBBER.

Because the United States uses more rubber than any other country, and because the British and Dutch control the world's rubber supply (which compels us to import the enormous amount needed for our rubber manufacturing), the United States has turned to her tropical possessions as a possible source of her rubber supply. The Hawaiian Islands and some of the Philippines have the right conditions for rubber growing. Many experiments are being carried out in those islands at present. It may be found that some portions of our irrigated southwestern states can produce rubber, in fact, Marathon, Texas, is doing so now. The difficulty in the Philippines is due to the land laws; but these can be modified. The law at present restricts the number of acres that can be owned by individuals, and so forbids large holdings. A recent newspaper article showed a proposed plan to acquire and use land without breaking the law and still without the necessary and slow "machinery" required to modify the law. The United States will probably be able to obtain the use of the land for rubber plantations very soon.

We stand today as the greatest importers of crude rubber, the greatest manufacturers of rubber, the greatest consumers of rubber, and the greatest exporters of manufactured rubber goods. The Far East leads in rubber production, with Singapore (no longer Para) the chief rubber port of the world. The figures of recent statistics show that Singapore exported more crude rubber than all the other rubber ports together last year. England and her colonies are our largest buyers of rubber goods, but we export to the entire world.

So far, we have given thought to production; but the transportation of rubber is also a big industry. Rubber manufacturing is very important in our country, and since the rubber has to be transported to us from plantations or jungle by water and land routes, that makes the transportation loom large. Here again, we depend on the British for her merchant marine for ocean shipping.

Akron, Ohio, is the most noted rubber manufacturing center of our country; but in and around Boston there has developed a rubber boot and shoe industry as statistics quite plainly show. Boston's lead there is due to an early start, nearness to ports, and skilled labor. Rubber manufacturing centers are now growing up in the Middle West and on the Pacific Coast. If we were studying sociology, it would be interesting to point out the contrasts between life in Akron, Ohio, and in the Brazilian jungle. Since we are interested in production, suffice it to say that the Akron factories are models of modern cleanliness, sanitation and efficiency.

It is interesting to note that rubber is no exception to the rule that "No industry can be isolated from others." The list of materials used in compounding and vulcanizing rubber, such as sulphur, carbon black, whiting, litharge, China clay, aniline, and many others, go to show some of the industries related to rubber. If, in addition, we consider the commodities needed to feed, clothe and shelter all the workers on rubber and its "by-products," we have some idea of the immensity of the whole problem.

Great Britain's restriction of rubber production was due to