Growing Rubber in North America

Ever since war was forced upon us, with the subsequent capture by the Japanese of the Malay Peninsula and the Dutch East Indies, Americans have been groping for new sources of natural rubber to replace those cut off by our enemies. With startling dispatch, lands which produced 90 per cent of the crude rubber used by this country had been captured, and the supplies from another 7 per cent of the world's producing areas had been endangered by action against lines of communication with these sources. The problem was not entirely new, because many farseeing people, both in government service and private business, had been concerned about our dependence on distant sources for what had become one of our essential materials in peace and war. They had made studies of domestic plants which might produce rubber in quantities sufficient for our necessities. The urgency of the task, however, was not so great then as it is now. Early this year I was assigned by the Goodrich company to give this problem primary attention, and to call on any other resources of the organization for assistance whenever necessary. The purpose was to seek information and propose action which would benefit the nation, suffering under an acute shortage of natural rubber. The principal early parts of this work were the study and evaluation of all domestic plants known to produce rubber, and the discovery, if possible, of new sources of this vital material on our continent.