VISITING AGENT FOR ESTATES IN THE EAST; FORMERLY SENIOR SCIENTIFIC OFFICER
AND NOW HONORARY ADVISER TO THE RUBBER GROWERS’ ASSOCIATION
IN MALAYA
CONSULTING CHEMIST TO THE RUBBER GROWERS’ ASSOCIATION IN LONDON
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD AND ESHER
Mr. Sidney Morgan’s work on Plantation Rubber in theEast is so well known that he hardly needs introduction.
An earlier book, published in 1914, by the Rubber Growers’Association, entitled “The Preparation of Plantation Rubber,”was well received and widely read. This book dealt in a verypractical manner with problems with which the industry hadto contend. A second edition was subsequently published.Both editions are now out of print. The present opportunitywas therefore taken to revise the original work, with the resultthat it has been enlarged and practically rewritten. Theinformation given is brought up-to-date, and covers the wholeprocess of production, commencing with the planting of thetree, passing on to the collection, coagulation, and curing ofthe rubber, and concluding with the packing for export. Inthe course of his work for the Association, Mr. Morgan carriedout a great deal of industrial research in rubber production,including lengthy experiments on tapping, the use of differentcoagulants and different conditions of coagulation, and also onvarying modes of rolling, drying, and smoking rubber. Healso went very fully into the types of construction and detailsof the machinery and buildings employed on estates.
Much of this valuable work has escaped notice, owing to itshaving been published in reports with limited circulation.Also a great deal of information was supplied to planters in aquiet and unobtrusive fashion, in interviews, visits to estates,and on other similar occasions. The knowledge and experiencethus accumulated has been embodied in the present volume.The subject-matter should interest not only those actuallyengaged in rubber planting, but those otherwise directly or[vi]indirectly connected with the industry, such as importers,brokers, and particularly the rubber manufacturers in thiscountry and in America. My experience has been that manufacturersas a whole have but a vague idea as to the methodsemployed in the preparation of plantation rubber, and thiswork provides them with the opportunity of obtaining aninsight into the actual operations on the estates. It is mostdesirable that a closer bond should unite the plantation andmanufacturing rubber industries. Such a result is best promotedby a better understanding of the problems with whicheach is confronted. Perhaps I may go so far as to suggestthat some leading scientific officer in the employment of one ofthe large manufacturing concerns may take in hand a bookwhich will give the planters the equivalent of information inregard to the manufacturing industry which the planters arenow offering to the manufacturers.
The photographs in the earlier part of the book will give thelayman some conception of the enormous amount of labourthat must be expended in the opening up, planting, trenching,and weeding the plantations which have replaced the virginjungle. The authors are indebted