238 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



iiiAV i, 1907. 



"Ficus Elastica," Botakic Gakdex, Saxtxago. 



fare being Si an hour. Of course, the new comer often pays 

 ver>' much more than that, but he does not need to. 



I had hardly settled down before a friend put me up at the 



.\- ' — 'T^.ub, which is a thrifij- organization, exceedingly well 



h 're one meets the best men of the city. As I was 



not rr.cre :o see sights unless they were rubber sights, I was 

 up at 6 o'clock the second morning and, after coffee at Del- 

 monico prices, took a cab for Christiana station and bought a 

 ticket for the experiment station at Santiago de las Vegas, 

 which goes under the name of the "Estacion Central .■Xgronomica 

 de Cuba." On the train I was approached by a meek faced, 

 long haired chap who inquired if I was going to the experiment 

 station, and on my aiiowing that 1 was. he said he had hired 

 a guide who seemed to be a good fellow and that we 

 could diWde expenses and see the sights together. He was. 

 so he said, connected with the Upton Sinclair Cooperative Colony 

 at Englewood, Xew Jersey, and evidently believed in dividing 

 his expenses with others. When I saw his guide, however, I 

 refused to "co-op,'' and he left me to my fate. .At Santiago I 

 got a carriage, and after a:i introducrion to Professor Crawley 

 was turned over to Mr. C. F. Baker, the botanist in charge. I 

 found him an exceedingly enthusiastic young man who had 

 traveled far in tropical regions, and who. by the way, is a 

 brother of Ray Stannard B?ker, the author. After lunch, ^here 

 I met the exceedingly pleasant little coior.y who live at the sta- 

 tion, I went to view the rubber. 



Almost the first thing that we saw were Castilloas, five years 

 old. that bad flourished in spile of all sorts of natural and arti- 



^J'- 



"tlCVi ljLOMER.\T.\ 1 USEE 1 t\RS ULI'. 

 [Achras sapota (Chicle tree) in tlie iGreground-I 



ficial d:sad%-antages. Among other natural disad\-an:2ges, itcy 

 had been planted where the soil did not appear to be at all ric'.:. 

 and as for the artificial, the seedlings were started in pots ar.i 

 then, pots and all, were put into the ground, thus checking the 

 root growth, so that when a cyclone came they Wew over. 

 This was before Mr. Baker's time; that is, the pot planting was. 

 When tiiey blew over, however, he promptly set them up again 

 and they grew right along as if nothing had happened. Among 

 -.;her rubber producers that were growing at the station were 

 fltosfegias, from Madagascar, which had only just been 

 p. anted. "•'^ -'"oots were full of milk and the plants bear 

 every pr growing luxuriantly. There was also sorr- 



Ficus elaj:: :j :- :.: appeared to be do:-^ 



The C e a r a 

 trees growing 

 there, h ■■ ever, 

 we- "; 



thr:;... .,,.;:- 

 mens. Indeed, 

 Mr. Baker had 

 a feeling t'na: it 

 would r- 

 goo d • 

 tier 



so r 'i 



was that a 1 1 

 over Cuba the 

 ■'C a s s a V a" 

 (Manihot utilis- 

 sima) was very 

 widely c u 1 1 i- 

 vated and bred 

 an insect that 

 attacked the 

 terminal buds, 

 going so far in- 

 side that it was 

 impossible i o 

 reach it by 

 spraying. This 

 insect, when 

 the Manihot 

 dazioz a a p- 

 peared. prompt- 

 ly forsook it; 

 first love and 

 destroyed the 



rubber producer. The Ficus elastica and the Castilloa. however. 

 Mr. Baker was sure could be cultivated profitably. Indeed, he 

 strongly advised the use of Castilloa as a shade for tobacco, in- 

 stead of the worthless trees used at the present time. I forgot to 

 say that the Castilloas then had just gone through four months' 

 drought and were still apparently in good trim and full of latex. 



.After I had looked the station over, Mr. Baker was good 

 enough to accompany me ui the only conveyance that was then 

 at the station, an open wagon drawn by a somewhat eccentric 

 mule, and we drove out over the fine cahadas to the outskirts 

 of the town to look at some Castilloas of earlier plantings and 

 also to examine wild Ficus trees, of which there are four kinds 

 native to the island. These are the Ficus membranacea, the 

 Ficus populoidcs, the Ficus suhscbrida, and the Ficus Combni 

 The Ficus membranacea was the only one that we saw that ds; 

 The Castilloas looked fairly well but were planted simply a* 

 fringe along the borders of the estate and had been mutilate^ 

 by passers-by until the bark surface was badly scarred. .\'' 

 seemed to be milk producers, however, and showed what the trer 

 would do. The Ficus grew by the roadside, having seeded 

 themselves, and were abundant milk producers, although so far 

 as I can learn only one j-ields rubber of a commercial quality — 



"Ficus'' Sp. -\t Saxtl\go Botaxic G.uidex. 



