NOT PROMISING

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 37, 12 August 1942, Page 4

NOT PROMISING

RUBBER IN SAMOA

Samoa's .rubber production was not likely to .reduce the world's shortage, 1 said Mr. Leon .Gotz, former general manager of the New Zealand Repara-, 'tions Estates- ilhere, and a rubber planter with a -long experience in Malaya, in an interview. "Rubber is a tropical plant, and Samoa is sub-tropical," he said. "In Malaya under tropical conditions rubber trees, come into bearing in from three to four years. In Samoa it takes from nine to ten years, because of tbbhe slower growth. ■■' A fifteen-year-old tree in Samoa is about the size of a six or seven-year tree in Malaya. Climatic conditions are important. In Malaya the rainfall is practically always in the afternoon. Tapping everywhere in the world is commenced at daylight, because the • pressure of the sap is then greater, and there is. a better flow of the latex. The later in the day tapping is done,-the less the flow of latex. If the trees are wet through rainfall in the morning, tapping cannot be done, because the. latex would merely flow, down the bark and not into the cups placed at^tiie confluence of tiie channels to catch, it. it it comes on to rain while tapping is in progress, and before the latex has been picked up by the cups, the latex in the channels is flushed into the ground. Rubber production.: therefore needs a climate in which ihe ,bulk of the rainfall is in the afternoon. "There are two rubber plantations in Samoa, one at Solaua, and the other at Aleisa. both at a considerable elevaI tion. What-other rubber -there is m Samoa is interplanted in the^cocoa estates, and when I went to Samoa there was a controversy as. to which it was the better to keep, cocoa or rubber. Rubber at that time was selling at 2Jd per lb, while the cost of production was lOd per Itx. Cocoa, on the other hand, was fetching up to £85 per ton. The two plants, rubber and cocoa, are incompatible Jn cultivationThe diseases from rubber trees spread into the cocoa areas, and prevent; the ripening of the cocoa, so it was decided to cut out the bulk of the interplanted rubber in the cocoa plantations,, and thus the amount of rubber available from; cocoa plantations is negligible." The rubber trees in Samoa were full of canker and other diseases, said Mr. Gotz, and the mortality amongst the trees was '-'very marked. >'■•*. The maximum yield in Samoa was from 2501b to 3001b of dry rubber per acre, whereas in Malaya yields; varied from 7001b. to 15001b per acre. Any concentration upon the commercial growth of rubber in Samoa was unwarranted. There was no Jand there with a low enough elevation to make rubber planting successful even in a; national emergency, and, moreover, what land was available was too close to the sea. The best condition's-for rubber were provided by : low-lying land well inland in a tropical climate, whereas the island of Upolu was a maximum of 15 miles wide.; ,•„■-. .;./'- * Cheap labour was a pre-requisite of profitable rubber production.. During the last war the price of. rubber was from 4s to 4s 4d per-lb; today it;was about Is Id. Future prospects of in-/ creased production:' were/,: limited y by many factors. Breaking in new ground" would: take six months/for clearing theb brush and a further period:forlining; and ■ planting. Four, more years; had :to be : added ;to/brings trees into; bearing ,arid during that/time: there: wouldbe the cost of constant. weed-, ing and dealing with' peists. :,;•/, '/.. : v'