28 CENTRAL AMERICAN RUBBER TREE. 



trees uniformly drop their leaves very completely, both young and 

 old, in the nurseries, as well as in the plantations. Many other of 

 the native trees also drop their leaves in the dry season. 



It was learned that there is a so-called hule macho in the vicinity of 

 Trinidad and Buena Vista. It is recognized as having- a fruit of a 

 different shape from that of the true rubber tree, but it is generally 

 thought to be the same. Seedlings of hule macho appear in plantations 

 sown from seeds of wild trees collected in the neighborhood, which 

 may obviously have come from wild hule macho, though it is commonly 

 believed that they are the male sex of the rubber tree. 



All the wild Castilla trees seen in the forests of Guatemala and 

 southern Mexico might be described as of medium rather than of large 

 size and of slender habit. The largest was near Tapachula (Plate IX), 

 with an estimated height of 80 feet and a circumference of 7 feet at 5 

 feet from the ground. There can be no doubt that in some of the drier 

 districts of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and northward Castilla shares 

 the reduced size and somewhat stunted growth of the tropical vegeta- 

 tion, which is here approaching the limit of its natural range. On the 

 other hand, it can scarcely be doubted that in the more southern of the 

 Central American Republics trees of Castilla attain a size unknown in 

 Mexico. Thus, in Nicaragua, Belt speaks of trees 5 feet in diameter 

 which yield as high as 50 pounds of rubber when tapped for the first 

 time. Such a tree would of course be a veritable prize for the rubber 

 gatherer, and it is easy to understand that in most localities they have 

 all been destroyed, and with little prospect of being replaced as long 

 as the rubber gatherer remains vigilant and the forests are unprotected. 

 Whether the Castilla of Nicaragua and Costa Rica is the same species 

 as that of Mexico is not j^et known, but there is every probability that 

 differences of some kind exist, and these are quite as likely to be differ- 

 ences of yield or of quality of rubber as discrepancies in shape of 

 leaves or other merely "botanical" characters.. As soon as planters 

 realize that a paying quantity of rubber is not, as so many have sup- 

 posed, a necessary part of the economy of a tree they will better ap- 

 preciate the fact that the production of rubber is a cultural problem 

 as truly as the production of coffee or sugar and as dependent upon 

 the same general factors. The conditions must be suitable for the 

 plants and the plants suitable for the conditions. No plant variety 

 will do equally well under all conditions, and it is almost as univers- 

 ally true that no two varieties will do equally well under the same 

 conditions. 



HABITS OF CASTILLA IN THE WILD STATE. 



There is a popular impression that in order to domesticate a plant it 

 is necessary to place it under the same conditions as in the wild state, 

 but as a matter of fact our cultivated plants generally have much better 



