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.