Developments in Technique

A S already shown, the main processes of rubber production are essentially simple. Nevertheless, there have been important developments since the 1920’s, some of which were a major factor in the reduction in estate costs during the depression of 1929–33. After 1934, however, regulation resulted in a retardation of the application of improved techniques to estate production, chiefly through restriction of output and the prohibition of new planting. At the end of the period, war conditions, excess profits tax at 100 per cent. and the fact that some of the experimental results were provisional, meant that little of the increased knowledge was applied. In the following discussion attention will be concentrated on estate practice, since (as will later be shown) no reliable information about technical progress on smallholdings is available, while the various research institutes and stations extended virtually no assistance to smallholders.