KAURI GUM.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 233, 2 October 1929, Page 4

KAURI GUM.

SUPPLIES STEADY.

COMPARATIVE FIGURES

Supplies which have come in during the past month have been mostly of lowgrade gums. A ready sale is sound for these poorer grades, and to a large extent this discouraged the production of the better grades, as the demand for the latter is at best spasmodic. While last years poor black chips were hardly saleable, they fetch at present £16 to £22 a ton. For medium black the demand is scarcely equal to the supply, and for rescraped black prices are hip;h, ranging from £145 to £155 a ton. On the whole diggers prefer to sell their gum unscraped when it fetches £85 to £95. Swamp gum is not coming at all freely, but supplies are calculated to improve with the dry weather. For September 323 tons were received into store, while for the same month last year the amount was 288 tons. Appended is a table showing the amount of gum in tons in storage for the first nine months of the last three years:—

1927. 1928. 1929. Tons. Tons. Tons. January 205 278 *>90 February .... 198 307 275 March 441 411 240 April 317 295 3.'?!) May 227 390 426 •June 359 331 285 July 230 364 349 August 241 331 317 September .... 323 288 323 Totals ... 2601 2995 2844