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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Romance of Rubber, by John Martin (Ed.)
+
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+Title: The Romance of Rubber
+
+Author: John Martin (Ed.)
+
+Release Date: December, 2003  [EBook #4759]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 13, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE ROMANCE OF RUBBER ***
+
+
+
+
+Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+THE ROMANCE OF RUBBER
+
+EDITED BY JOHN MARTIN
+
+EDITOR OF JOHN MARTIN'S BOOK THE CHILD'S MAGAZINE
+
+PUBLISHED BY UNITED STATES RUBBER COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTORY NOTE
+
+We have undertaken to print this booklet, telling you how rubber 
+is grown, gathered, and then made useful, for this reason:
+
+The United States Rubber Company, as the largest rubber 
+manufacturer in the world, wants the coming generations of our 
+country to have some understanding of the importance of rubber in 
+our every day life.
+
+We hope to interest and inform you. We believe the rubber industry 
+will be better off if the future citizens of our country know more 
+about it.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+THE DISCOVERY
+
+
+If you were asked, "What did Columbus discover in 1492?" you would 
+have but one answer. But what he discovered on his second voyage 
+is not quite so easy to say. He was looking for gold when he 
+landed on the island of Hayti on that second trip. So his eyes 
+were blind to the importance of a simple game which he saw being 
+played with a ball that bounced by some half-naked Indian boys on 
+the sand between the palm trees and the sea. Instead of the 
+coveted gold, he took back to Europe, just as curiosities, some of 
+the strange black balls given him by these Indian boys. He learned 
+that the balls were made from the hardened juice of a tree.
+
+The little boys and girls of Spain were used to playing with balls 
+made of rags or wool, so you may imagine how these bouncing balls 
+of the Indians must have pleased them. But the men who sent out 
+this second expedition gave the balls little thought and certainly 
+no value. Since Columbus brought back no gold, he was thrown into 
+prison for debt, and he never imagined that, four hundred years 
+later, men would turn that strange, gummy tree juice into more 
+gold than King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella and all the princes of 
+Europe ever dreamed of.
+
+In the next century after Columbus's travels the Portuguese 
+founded the colony of Brazil on the continent of South America. 
+Their settlements were near the coast and they did not begin to 
+explore the great Amazon region for a hundred years or so. The 
+journey down this great river--which Theodore Roosevelt took so 
+many years later--was first made by a Portuguese missionary, who 
+found the same kind of gummy tree juice as that of the West 
+Indies. But the natives along the Amazon had discovered that 
+besides being elastic it was waterproof, and they were making 
+shoes that would keep out water. You can picture a native boy 
+spilling some of this liquid on his foot, then covering it, as he 
+might with a mud pie, and when it dried wiggling his toes to find 
+that, he had the first and perhaps the best fitting gum shoe that 
+ever was made.
+
+Little by little samples of this new substance found their way to 
+Europe. It was another hundred years before thoughtful men 
+believed it worth while to investigate this gum. In 1731 the Paris 
+Academy of Science sent some explorers to learn about it. One of 
+these Frenchmen, La Condamine, wrote of a tree called "Hevea" 
+[Footnote: Hevea is pronounced Hee'-vee-uh. Caoutchouc is 
+pronounced koo'-chook.] "There flows from this tree a liquor which 
+hardens gradually and blackens in the air." He found the people of 
+Quito waterproofing cloth with it, and the Amazon Indians were 
+making boots which, when blackened in smoke, looked like leather. 
+Most interesting of all, they coated bottle-shaped moulds, and 
+when the gum had hardened they would break the mould, shaking the 
+pieces out of the neck, leaving an unbreakable bottle that would 
+hold liquids.
+
+It was not long afterwards that Lisbon began to import some of 
+these crudely fashioned articles, and it is said that in 1755 the 
+King of Portugal sent to Brazil several pairs of his boots to be 
+waterproofed. A few years later the Government of Para, Brazil, 
+sent him a full suit of rubber clothes. For all that, this elastic 
+gum was for the most part only a curiosity, and few people knew 
+there was such a thing.
+
+About the year 1770, a black, bouncing ball of caoutchouc, as the 
+Indians called the gum, after many travels found its way to 
+England, and Priestley, the man who gave us oxygen, learned that 
+it would rub out pencil marks. Then and there he named it what you 
+have probably guessed long before this: "rub-ber." Nearly every 
+language except English uses in place of the word rubber some form 
+of the native Word "caoutchouc," which means "weeping tree." After 
+Priestley's discovery, a one-inch "rubber" sold for three 
+shillings, or about seventy-five cents, but artists were glad to 
+pay even that price, because their work was made so much easier.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+CHARLES GOODYEAR
+
+
+In 1800 Brazil was the only country manufacturing rubber articles, 
+and her best market soon proved to be North America. Probably the 
+first rubber this country saw was brought to New England in 
+clipper ships as ballast in the form of crude lumps and balls. 
+Rubber shoes, water-bottles, powder-flasks, and tobacco-pouches 
+found buyers in the American ports, but rubber shoes were most in 
+demand.
+
+Soon some Americans began to import raw rubber and to manufacture 
+rubber goods of their own, and in the old world a Scotchman named 
+Macintosh found a way of waterproofing cloth by spreading on it a 
+thin coating of rubber dissolved in coal naphtha. Many people 
+still refer to raincoats as mackintoshes. Rubber clothing shared 
+favor with rubber shoes, but its popularity was short-lived for it 
+did not wear well and was almost as sensitive to temperature as 
+molasses and butter. The rubber shoes and coats get hard and stiff 
+in winter and soft and sticky in summer. A man wearing a pair of 
+rubber overalls who sat down too near a warm stove soon found that 
+his overalls, his chair and himself were stuck fast together. The 
+first rubber coats became so stiff in cold weather that when you 
+took one off you could stand it up in the middle of the floor and 
+leave it, for it would stand like a tent until the rubber thawed 
+out, and when thawed it was almost as uncomfortable as is fly-
+paper to the fly.
+
+One day Charles Goodyear, a Connecticut hardware merchant of an 
+inventive turn of mind, went to a store to buy a life preserver. 
+He could find only imperfect ones, but they drew his attention to 
+the study of rubber, and presently he was thinking of it by day 
+and dreaming of it by night. Rubber became a passion with him. He 
+felt sure some way could be found to make it firm yet flexible 
+regardless of temperature, and for ten years he experimented with 
+different mixtures and processes, hoping to find the right one. So 
+intent was he on his search that he found time for nothing else. 
+Due to neglect his business went to pieces and he became very 
+poor.
+
+Finally, in 1839, when he was on the point of giving up in 
+despair, he accidentally came upon the solution. He was 
+experimenting in his kitchen, a place which, through lack of 
+funds, he was often forced to use as a laboratory. Part of a 
+mixture of rubber, sulphur and other chemicals, with which he was 
+working, happened to drop on the top of the stove. It lay there 
+sizzling and charring until the odor of the burning rubber called 
+his attention to it. As he stooped to scrape it off the stove he 
+gave a start of wonder as he noted that a change had come over the 
+rubber during its brief contact with the stove.
+
+To his surprise the mixture had not melted, but had flattened out 
+in the shape of a silver dollar. When it had cooled enough to be 
+handled, he found that it bent and stretched easily, without 
+cracking or breaking, and that it always snapped back to its 
+original shape. Strangest of all, it was no longer sticky. 
+Apparently half the problem was solved. Whether his new mixture 
+would stand the cold he had yet to find out, so he nailed it on 
+the outside of the door and went to bed. Probably he slept but 
+little and was up early. At any rate he found the rubber 
+unaffected by the cold.
+
+Then he knew that he had made a real discovery and he named the 
+process "vulcanizing" after Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. 
+"Vulcanizing" means mixing pure rubber with certain chemicals and 
+then applying heat. On this process, which is by no means simple, 
+the great rubber business of the world has been established. 
+Practically everything made of rubber, or of which rubber is a 
+part, has to go through the vulcanizing process, whether it is a 
+pair of Keds, a tire, a fruit jar ring, or a doormat.
+
+So many people had been deceived by previous rubber ventures that 
+Goodyear had great trouble in finding anyone with enough faith to 
+invest money in his discovery. It was some time before he was able 
+to take out the first of the more than sixty patents which he was 
+granted during his lifetime for applying his process to various 
+uses. Under these patents he licensed several factories to use the 
+process in the manufacture of rubber goods, but required them to 
+stamp all goods with the words "Goodyear patent." Scores of 
+companies have since used the name Goodyear, but the only 
+factories that he licensed which are now in existence are parts of 
+the United States Rubber Company.
+
+Goodyear often had to defend his patents in court. In the most 
+famous of these suits, he was defended by Daniel Webster and 
+opposed by Rufus Choate, so that we see interwoven in the story of 
+rubber the names of two of the greatest statesmen this country has 
+produced.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+THE HEVEA TREE
+
+
+For the very first of the rubber story we may thank a little wood-
+boring beetle, and the way nature has of helping her children to 
+protect themselves.
+
+The thistle of the meadow is as safe from hungry cattle as though 
+fenced in by barbed wire. A cow must be starving that would care 
+to flavor her luncheon with the needles that the thistle bears. 
+The common skunk cabbage would make a tempting meal for her after 
+a winter of dry feeding, had not Nature given it an odor that 
+disgusts even a spring-time appetite. The milkweed welcomes the 
+bees and flies that help to distribute her pollen where she wants 
+it spread, but she has her own way of punishing the useless 
+thieves that trespass up her stalk. Wherever the hooks of an 
+insect's feet pierce her tender skin, she pours out a milky juice 
+to entangle its feet and body, and it is a lucky bug that succeeds 
+in escaping before this juice hardens, and holds him a prisoner 
+condemned to die.
+
+All over the world there are plants with the same ability that the 
+milkweed has, but it is especially true of certain trees and vines 
+of the tropics. As soon as the little beetle begins to bore into 
+the bark of one of these trees, there pours out a sticky, milky 
+fluid that kills the insect at once. If this were all, the wound 
+would remain open, ready for the next robber who came along. In 
+order that the break may be healed, a cement is necessary, but not 
+a hard, unyielding one, for that would crumble away with the 
+motion of the tree in the wind.
+
+So with Mother Nature's perfection in doing things, the very plant 
+juice that has done duty as a poison is hardened into an elastic 
+stopper. with the result that, no matter how far the tree may sway 
+and tug at the wound, the filling gives and stretches, true to the 
+task it has to perform.
+
+This was the juice the crafty savage induced the tree to give up. 
+Wherever the bark was cut, the fluid poured forth to heal the 
+break and hardened like blood on a cut finger. The native caught 
+it while it was still soft and applied it to his simple needs.
+
+This juice is not the sap of the rubber tree. Sap, which is the 
+life-blood of the tree, flows through the wood, but the juice we 
+are describing is contained in the inner bark, a thin layer 
+directly below the outer bark.
+
+Scientific men call this juice latex. It is like milk in three 
+ways: it is white, it contains tiny particles that rise to the top 
+like cream, and it spoils quickly.
+
+The particles in cow's milk are full of fats which make it good 
+for us to drink. But a rubber tree's milk has tiny atoms of rubber 
+and resin and other things, and it took time to discover which of 
+the vines and trees was the prize milker of the tropics and gave 
+the largest amount of pure rubber. Finally, the Hevea, the very 
+tree the Frenchman wrote about, proved to be the best, and, 
+although by no means the only rubber tree of commercial value, it 
+is acknowledged the greatest of rubber trees.
+
+The Hevea tree grows sixty feet tall, and when full grown is eight 
+or ten feet around. It rises as straight as an elm, with high 
+branching limbs and long, smooth oval leaves. Sprays of pale 
+flowers blossom upon it in August, followed in a few months by 
+pods containing three speckled seeds which look like smooth, 
+slightly flattened nutmegs. 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. The Amazon country has a 
+rainy season which lasts half the year, though the other season is 
+by no means a dry one, and so for half the time the jungles are 
+flooded.
+
+These rubber storehouses had been growing for thousands of years 
+in the Amazon jungle with their wealth securely sealed up in their 
+bark, the peck of a bird, the boring of a beetle, or the scratch 
+of a climbing animal being the only draft upon their treasure. The 
+trees around the mouth of the river supplied whatever was needed 
+for the little manufacturing that was at first done. But the 
+discovery that made a universal use for rubber changed all this. 
+Brazil was surprised to find what great treasure her forests 
+contained. Large rubber areas were found a thousand miles up the 
+river and she began in a serious way to develop a large crude 
+rubber business.
+
+Less than twenty years ago Brazil produced practically all the 
+rubber used in the world. But to-day she furnishes less than one-
+tenth of the world's supply. How Brazil, possessing in her vast 
+forests millions of rubber trees of the finest quality, has been 
+forced by unfavorable conditions to permit the Far East to sweep 
+from her in this short time the crude rubber supremacy of the 
+world is one of the most unusual chapters in modern industrial 
+history.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+WICKHAM'S IDEA
+
+
+The story of the success of the East Indies in wresting the crude 
+rubber supremacy from Brazil, begins with an Englishman named 
+Wickham, who might be called the father of plantation rubber.
+
+Wickham, who had spent some years in South America, understood the 
+difficulties of gathering rubber in the jungles. He believed that 
+if rubber could be cultivated it might prove a good crop on the 
+coffee plantations in India which a blight had recently rendered 
+valueless for coffee. What a strange fact it is that this blight 
+gave Brazil a chance to go into coffee growing, and that while 
+Brazil was losing the rubber supremacy to the Far East, the Far 
+East at about the same time was surrendering the leadership in 
+coffee to Brazil. The latter now holds first place in coffee 
+growing as firmly as does the Far East in rubber growing.
+
+Wickham saw that there were difficulties that would prevent the 
+gathering of wild rubber from keeping pace with the growing 
+demand. Although millions of rubber trees still stood untouched in 
+the Brazilian forests, only those trees near the river banks could 
+be tapped because of the impossibility of getting the rubber out 
+of the dense vegetation. Life in the jungle was dangerous and 
+lonely, and therefore rubber gatherers were not easy to find. They 
+were compelled to work far from their families and friends, and in 
+constant danger from wild beasts, reptiles and death-bearing 
+fevers. It is no wonder that rubber obtained in this way came to 
+be known as "wild rubber." Moreover, transporting the crude 
+product through the jungles was hard and expensive and the rubber 
+obtained under these conditions was not always so clean or high in 
+quality as might be wished.
+
+"If rubber trees grow from the seeds which nature scatters in the 
+jungle," said Wickham to himself, "why should they not grow from 
+seeds put into the ground by hand?"
+
+"If rubber trees could be raised from seed, they could be planted 
+in the open in rows where they could easily be tended and tapped, 
+and the rubber gathered quickly and safely. Instead of having to 
+brave the dangerous jungles, men could plant and cultivate rubber 
+in spots of their own choosing so long as they chose places where 
+the climate was right."
+
+For many years people only laughed at Wickham's great idea, but 
+like Goodyear he had faith enough to persevere. While in Brazil he 
+planted some rubber seeds to see what would happen. The seeds DID 
+grow, and the book which Wickham wrote about his idea and his 
+experiments finally came into the hands of Sir Joseph Hooker, the 
+Director of the Botanical Gardens in Kew, near London. So 
+interested did he become that he called Wickham's plan to the 
+attention of the Government of India, and finally Wickham was 
+commissioned to take a cargo of rubber seeds to England, so that 
+his idea might be tried out.
+
+This commission was more difficult than one might think, and all 
+of Wickham's faith and perseverance were needed to carry it out. 
+Indeed for a time it seemed hopeless, principally because the 
+seeds so quickly dry up and lose their vitality that they must be 
+planted very soon after being gathered.
+
+But Wickham watched his opportunity, and finally he was able to 
+charter a ship in the name of the Indian Government. About a third 
+of the way up the Amazon River he placed in her hold several 
+thousand carefully packed seeds of the Hevea Braziliensis, or 
+rubber tree. Let Wickham, himself, tell how he surmounted the next 
+difficulty:
+
+"We were bound to call in at the city of Para as the port of 
+entry, in order to obtain clearance papers for the ship before we 
+could go to sea. Any delay would have rendered my precious freight 
+quite valueless and useless. But again fortune favored. I had a 
+'friend at court' in the person of Consul Green, who went himself 
+with me to call on the proper official, and supported me as I 
+presented to His Excellency 'my difficulty and anxiety, being in 
+charge of, and having on board a ship anchored out in the stream, 
+exceedingly delicate botanical specimens, especially designated 
+for delivery to Her Britannic Majesty's own Royal Garden of Kew. 
+Even while doing myself the honor of thus calling on His 
+Excellency, I had given orders to the captain of the ship to keep 
+up steam, having ventured to trust His Excellency would see his 
+way clear to furnishing me with immediate dispatch. An interview 
+most polite, full of mutual compliments in the best Portuguese 
+manner, enabled us to get under way as soon as the captain had got 
+the dinghy hauled aboard."
+
+Can you imagine Wickham's sigh of relief as his vessel, with its 
+freight of perishable treasure, steamed out of port, and began the 
+long journey to England?
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+PLANTATION DEVELOPMENT
+
+
+The transporting of the rubber seeds from the Brazilian forests to 
+England was only the first step in Wickham's project. The real 
+test was still to come. The seeds were planted in the famous 
+Botanical Gardens of Kew, and on August 12, 1876, the several 
+thousand seedlings which had been raised from them were packed in 
+special cases and shipped to Ceylon on the other side of the globe 
+for the final and most important stage of the experiment.
+
+How long the next five years must have seemed to the anxious 
+Wickham, for it was that long before the first rubber tree 
+flowered in the gardens at Heneratgoda, sixteen miles from 
+Colombo, where the trees had finally been planted. In this year, 
+1881, experiments in tapping began, and it was plain that 
+Wickham's dream was to be realized.
+
+From these few trees, so carefully tended in their youth, has 
+sprung the whole rubber industry of Ceylon and the Far East. 
+Wickham must indeed have been proud to see the plantations 
+spreading from Ceylon to Malaya, where rubber was eagerly taken up 
+by planters who were despairing of ever making a living out of 
+coffee, and later to Sumatra and Java and Borneo. To-day rubber 
+plantations cover an area of over 3,000,000 acres, with a yearly 
+output of almost 360,000 tons, or about ten times the average 
+yearly output of "wild rubber."
+
+There is a curious coincidence in the fact that Wickham got his 
+idea about planting rubber trees in India at about the same time 
+that men in America began to experiment with the horseless 
+carriage. You may never have stopped to think of it, but 
+mechanical experts say that without rubber pneumatic tires, 
+automobiles could never have become the fine, swift vehicles they 
+are. It was a wonderful thing that when in the early part of this 
+century the automobile industry suddenly burst forth with a demand 
+for rubber so great that Brazil could never have hoped to supply 
+it, there was found ready in the Far East, as a result of the 
+planting that had been done there, a supply that took care of the 
+sudden emergency.
+
+A little more than ten years ago American business men began to 
+take an interest in the rubber plantations. They have shown 
+characteristic energy in the field, and the greatest single rubber 
+plantation in the world is owned by an American company, the 
+United States Rubber Company. This plantation is on the island of 
+Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies, one of the best governed 
+colonies in the East. On this island is an orchard of rubber 
+trees, as beautifully laid out and as well cared for as any 
+orchard of fruit trees in our own country. For seventy square 
+miles, an area as large as the District of Columbia, the orderly 
+ranks of trees fill the gently rolling landscape, every inch of 
+which is weeded as carefully as a garden. It takes twenty thousand 
+employees to care for the trees, which number more than 5,000,000.
+
+On this plantation the science of growing rubber trees has been 
+brought to a perfection known nowhere else in the world. 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.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+PLANTATION LIFE
+
+
+The moist but very hot climate which rubber trees require is found 
+only in a zone around the world between the parallels of latitude 
+thirty degrees north to thirty degrees south of the equator. 
+Within this zone there have been found more than 350 rubber 
+bearing trees, shrubs and vines. For this reason this zone is 
+called the Rubber Belt. As most of the rubber used commercially is 
+gathered from trees growing within a zone extending from ten 
+degrees north to ten degrees south of the equator, this latter 
+zone is sometimes called the Inner Rubber Belt.
+
+If you will trace this belt on a map of the world you will see 
+that it includes the Amazon region which produces more than three-
+quarters of the wild rubber used in manufacturing. Most of South 
+America's wild rubber is obtained from Brazil, the remainder from 
+Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela. Now continue the belt across the 
+Atlantic Ocean to Africa, where you will strike the Belgian Congo 
+which produces a small quantity of wild rubber. Partly owing to 
+the careless manner of gathering and partly to the fact that it is 
+not originally of as good quality as Brazilian rubber, Congo 
+rubber is not as valuable for manufacturing as Brazilian. Then 
+complete the circle by following the belt across the Indian Ocean 
+to Ceylon and the East Indies which contain the great rubber 
+plantations where most of the rubber used to-day comes from.
+
+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. Immense trees and thick bushes, rank straggling weeds and 
+vines form an almost impenetrable jungle. To turn such a place 
+into a garden spot means a genuine battle against jungle 
+conditions. But gradually trees, shrubs and undergrowth are torn 
+out and burned, laying bare the rich soil ready for the plow of 
+the planter.
+
+Meantime the rubber seedlings have been sprouted in nurseries. 
+When the ground is ready they are carefully taken up and 
+transplanted to the holes which have been made for them in the 
+field where they are to be permanently planted.
+
+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. The highest yield ever 
+recorded was given by one of the original trees set out in the 
+gardens at Heneratgoda, which gave ninety-six and one-half pounds 
+in one year.
+
+How different is life on the rubber plantations of to-day from the 
+life of the gatherer of wild rubber in the jungle. In Brazil, the 
+solitary workers have to plunge at dawn into the perilous forest, 
+with its lurking wildcats and jaguars, its coiled and creeping 
+serpents. The dwellings are flimsy huts, food is scarce and 
+expensive, and disease and fever cause many deaths.
+
+On the other hand, workers on a well-managed plantation live in 
+comfortable houses in healthy surroundings and are supplied with 
+plenty of good food. In fact the conditions are so much better 
+than generally prevail among natives in the Orient that work on a 
+plantation is considered more desirable than most other forms of 
+labor. The unmarried men live in barracks, but the men with 
+families have individual houses with garden plots adjoining. Big 
+kitchens prepare and cook the food in the best native style. 
+Schools for the children, recreation centers for old and young, 
+and hospitals to care for the sick, are all parts of the 
+plantation organization.
+
+In erecting hospitals and caring for the health of its plantation 
+workers, as in other branches of the rubber industry, America has 
+taken the lead. So well is this recognized, that the Dutch 
+Government has awarded a medal to the United States Rubber Company 
+for the efficiency and completeness of its plantation hospital, 
+which happens to be the largest private hospital in the East 
+Indies, having accommodations for nearly a thousand patients.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+HARVESTING THE RUBBER
+
+
+It is a cheerful sight to see the workers, men and women, dressed 
+in all the colors of the rainbow, trooping out from their quarters 
+to begin the day's work. The tapping must be done early in the 
+day, for the latex or rubber juice stops flowing a few hours after 
+sunrise.
+
+When the trees reach eighteen inches in girth at a point eighteen 
+inches from the ground, they are ready for tapping. This growth is 
+usually attained when the trees are about five years old.
+
+In tapping, a narrow strip of bark is cut away with a knife, the 
+cut extending diagonally one-quarter of the way around the tree. 
+At each succeeding day's tapping the tapper widens the cut by 
+stripping off a sliver of bark one-twentieth of an inch in width. 
+[Footnote: This method of tapping is shown on the front cover] He 
+must be careful not to cut into the wood of the tree, as such cuts 
+not only injure the tree but permit the sap to run into the latex 
+and spoil the rubber. When the tapper has made the proper gash in 
+the bark he inserts a little spout to carry the dripping latex to 
+a glass cup beneath.
+
+Later in the morning the workers make the rounds of the trees with 
+large milk cans, gathering the latex from the cups. When the cans 
+are full they are carried to a collecting station, called a 
+Coagulation Shed. It is as clean and well kept as a dairy. Here 
+the latex is weighed, and when each collector has been credited 
+with the amount he has brought, it is dumped into huge vats.
+
+The next step is to extract the particles of rubber from the latex 
+and to harden them. The jungle method of hardening rubber is to 
+dip a wooden paddle in the latex and smoke it over a fire of wood 
+and palm nuts.[Footnote: See picture, page 12.] It is a back-
+breaking process to cover the paddle with layer after layer, until 
+a good-sized lump, usually called a "biscuit," is formed. The 
+plantation method is a quicker and cleaner one. Into the vats is 
+poured a small quantity of acid, which causes the rubber "cream" 
+to coagulate and come to the surface. The "coagulum," as it is 
+called, is like snow-white dough. It is removed from the vats and 
+run in sheets through machines which squeeze out the moisture and 
+imprint on them a criss-cross pattern to expose as large a surface 
+as possible to the air.
+
+These sheets of rubber are then hung in smoke houses and smoked 
+from eight to fourteen days in much the same way that we smoke 
+hams and bacon. After being dried in this way they are pressed 
+into bales or packed in boxes ready for shipment.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+A LAST WORD
+
+
+It would be an adventure to follow a bale of plantation rubber as, 
+carefully boxed or wrapped in burlap, it starts on its long and 
+picturesque journey. Bullock carts, railroads, boats and steamers 
+bring it at last to one of the world markets, Singapore, Colombo, 
+London, Amsterdam or New York, where it is bought by dealers, and 
+then sold to factories which make rubber goods.
+
+An equally fascinating story might be told of its progress through 
+the factory, how it is kneaded and rolled, mixed with chemicals, 
+rubbed into fabrics, baked in ovens, and finally emerges as any 
+one of the tens of thousands of articles that are made wholly or 
+partly from rubber.
+
+Rubber manufacturing is peculiarly an American industry. South 
+America gave us the original rubber trees, and the one man who, 
+more than any other, was responsible for making rubber useful was 
+the American, Charles Goodyear. To-day, two-thirds of the entire 
+output of rubber is sold to the United States, whose manufactured 
+rubber goods set the standard for the whole world.
+
+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.
+
+Rubber is a substance of so many important characteristics that 
+its uses are countless. It is used for certain purposes because it 
+stretches, for others because it is airtight and watertight, for 
+others because it is a non-conductor of electricity, for others 
+because it is shock-absorbing, and for others because it is 
+adhesive.
+
+It is on rubber that infants cut their teeth; after all the teeth 
+are gone old age makes use of rubber in plates for false teeth. 
+Ten million motorists and other millions of cyclists in the United 
+States ride on rubber tires that are durable, noiseless and 
+airtight. Balloons of rubber float aloft, and huge submarines plow 
+their routes beneath the ocean's surface propelled by electricity 
+stored in great rubber cells. Sheathed in rubber, the lightning 
+makes a peaceful way through our homes, offices and factories, 
+furnishing light and telephone service. Divers sink out of sight 
+beneath the waves in rubber suits. Rubber air-brake hose on 
+railroad trains makes safe the travel of a nation, air-drill hose 
+rivets our ships, fire hose protects the properly in city and town 
+and garden hose brings nourishment to our growing plants. Rubber 
+clothing protects against storm and rubber footwear guards us 
+against cold and wet. Tennis balls and golf balls and rubber-cored 
+baseballs give healthful sport to the millions. In hospitals and 
+medical work the uses of rubber are without number.
+
+To select the most important use to which rubber is put would be 
+difficult. One student of the subject says:
+
+"Of all the applications of rubber, that of packing for the steam 
+engine and connecting machinery appears to have been the most 
+important, as it has been an essential condition of the 
+development and extended use of steam as a motive power."
+
+Even as you read this, rubber may be in the act of performing some 
+new magic, some fresh service to mankind. And who knows which one 
+of us will, in the years to come, write a chapter in the story of 
+rubber more thrilling than we are able to imagine to-day!
+
+
+
+
+
+A REVIEW AND QUESTIONS
+
+
+1. Who was the first white man to see rubber?
+
+2 What use were the natives making of it?
+
+3. Who was the first white man to go up the Amazon?
+
+4. Of what nationality were the explorers who were sent to find 
+out about rubber?
+
+5. Who was the first European monarch to use rubber?
+
+6. How did rubber get its name?
+
+7. How did rubber first come to the United States?
+
+8. Why are some raincoats called mackintoshes?
+
+9. Why is Charles Goodyear called "the father of the rubber 
+industry"?
+
+10. What is "vulcanizing"?
+
+11. What famous men fought in court over the patents?
+
+12. What has a beetle to do with rubber?
+
+13. Name and describe the liquid in which rubber is found?
+
+14. In what part of the tree is this liquid found?
+
+15. What is the difference between this liquid and the sap of a 
+tree.
+
+16. Name and describe the best rubber tree.
+
+17. How are the seeds spread?
+
+18. What climate is needed for rubber trees?
+
+19. Which country formerly supplied all the rubber used in the 
+world?
+
+20. Who first thought of growing rubber trees on plantations?
+
+21. Why did he think it was better to grow them on plantations?
+
+22. How were the rubber seeds taken from Brazil?
+
+23. On what tropical island was the first plantation started?
+
+24. Where are rubber plantations found to-day?
+
+25. What is the yearly output of the plantations?
+
+26. What was the curious coincidence in the growth of the 
+plantation industry?
+
+27. What is meant by the Rubber Belt around the world?
+
+28. What countries are the principal producers of rubber?
+
+29. Why is the worker on a plantation better off than one who 
+lives in the jungle?
+
+30. When are trees ready to be tapped?
+
+31. How are trees tapped?
+
+32. How is rubber "cured" in the jungle?
+
+33. How is it "cured" on the plantation?
+
+34. Why is rubber manufacturing peculiarly an American industry?
+
+
+
+
+
+RUBBER PRODUCTS
+
+
+There are so many different articles made in whole or part of 
+rubber that it would not be possible to list them all on this 
+page. The following list of just a few of the thousands of rubber 
+products made by the United States Rubber Company, the oldest and 
+largest rubber organization in the world, will help you to think 
+of many other articles made of rubber.
+
+TIRES
+
+"U.S." Royal Cord Automobile Tires.
+
+"U.S." Mono-Twin Truck Tires.
+
+"U.S." Traxion Tread Motorcycle Tires.
+
+"U.S." Bicycle Tires.
+
+"U.S." Royal Tubes for Automobile Tires.
+
+CLOTHING
+
+Raynster Raincoats.
+
+Naugahyde Belts for Men, Women and Children.
+
+Bathing Caps and Suits.
+
+FOOTWEAR
+
+Keds, the Standard Canvas Rubber-Soled Shoes.
+
+"U.S." Boots.
+
+"U.S." Arctics and Gaiters.
+
+"U.S." Rubbers.
+
+HARD RUBBER GOODS
+
+Battery Jars.
+
+Radio Parts.
+
+Dye Sticks.
+
+HOUSEHOLD
+
+Hot-water Bags.
+
+Rubber Gloves.
+
+Ice Caps.
+
+Tubing and Sheeting.
+
+Nursing Bottle Nipples.
+
+Toys.
+
+Fruit Jar Rubbers.
+
+MECHANICAL GOODS
+
+"U.S." Rainbow Packing.
+
+"U.S." Rainbow Transmission Belting.
+
+"U.S." Elevator and Conveyor Belts.
+
+"U.S." Hose for all purposes, including Garden, Steam, Suction, 
+Water, Fire, Oil, Irrigation, etc.
+
+Paracore Insulated Wire and Cable.
+
+Moulded Goods in thousands of varieties, as, for example, Washers, 
+Gaskets, Plumbers' Rubber Goods, Drainboard Mats, Bath Mats, etc.
+
+"U.S." Tile and Sheet Flooring.
+
+SUNDRIES
+
+Naugahyde Traveling Bags.
+
+"U.S." Royal Golf Balls.
+
+Balloons and Balloon Fabrics.
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTICE TO TEACHERS
+
+
+These booklets are intended for presentation to your pupils. A 
+full supply will be sent to you, free of charge, if you will 
+indicate the number of students in your class.
+
+Please address
+
+Educational Department 
+United States Rubber Company 
+1790 BROADWAY 
+New York City 
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE ROMANCE OF RUBBER ***
+
+This file should be named rubbr10.txt or rubbr10.zip
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