Short History of Gum production

Chewing or bubble gum was origionally made out of chicle, a natural gum made fom a tropical tree of Central America, the Manilkara chicle . While the 'wriggly' chewing gum company used to use this kind of gum it now, along with most other chewing gum manufactorers, uses rubber, for economic purposes and also to just improve quality of thier products. Chicle is still used in Japan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicle