330 



THb. INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



IJULY 



'9»5- 



system of lagoons and waterways that were to be our pathway 

 to the rubber plantations. 



These comprise the Bluefields river, the Escondido(" Hidden 

 waters") river, and a great variety of deep lagoons and water- 

 ways intermingling in inextricable confusion, shut in by walls 



of tropical foli- 

 age, an expanse 

 of natural pass- 

 ages so great 

 that a navy 

 might easily be 

 hidden there 

 without the re- 

 motest chance of 

 detection. In- 

 deed, in the old 

 days of the buc- 

 caneers these la- 

 goons were fav- 

 orite retreats, 

 and if closely 

 pursued a vessel 

 lould slip into 

 one of them, tiea 

 few branches to 

 hertopmastsand 

 rif(v discovery. 



W*L0H0N'S STORE 



-"CUKRA" AND 

 TATIONS- 



CANADA " PLAN- 



The ride up through the Es- 



condido was simply entranc- 

 ing. There was scarcely a rip 



pie on the water; the foliage 



of palms, palmettos, man- 

 groves, wild bananas, inter 



spersed with patches of pani 



pas grass the stalks of which 



were 20 and 30 (eet high, .<i' 



bound together with vines ai ^ 



spangled with flowers, llu 



huge flocks of blue and while 



cranes and the basking alliga 



tors — all made a panorama so 



wild in its tropical beauty that 



it added new fascinations every mi nicni. 



Finally, late in the afternoon we turned into Sloophouse 



creek, and a little later were moored at the pier belonging to 



the"Cukra" plantation. Here we disembarked, and leaving 



our luggage to be brought up later, followed a narrow gage ba- 

 nana railway up over a little hill, through a part of the 1500 

 acre banana plantation of the Cukra company, and were soon 



at the house of Mr. Gordon Wafdron, one of the owners, where 

 we had a bountiful supper and a most interesting chat, chiefly 

 on rubber. After supper, in the bright moonlight, we boarded 

 a flat car drawn by a diminutive engine and rode three miles 

 into the country to the road that led to the " Manhattan " 

 plantation. There saddle horses and a wagon were awaiting 

 us, and as it had suddenly clouded up and begun to rain, the 

 Importer and I got on the top of the baggage, preferring to trust 

 ourselves to a wagon rather than a horseback ride through the 

 pitchy darkness. The road was far from smooth and we got 

 ample exercise before reaching the plantation house. We did 

 reach it finally, at 1 1.30, and turning in under mosquito nets, 

 slept like tops. 



At daybreak the whole crowd roused out and going to the 

 door, found that we were right in the middle of planted rubber. 

 It was on all sides of us and even in the yard, the average age 



being about three years and the trees looking stocky and thrifty. 

 The soil seemed to be a red loamy clay, quite porous, with con- 

 siderable volcanic rock through it, and the country rolling 

 rather than flat. The soil was exceedingly deep, as was attested 

 by several wells that had been sunk, the deepest being 40 feet, 

 which had not got through that formation. 



That the trees bled very freely I was able to prove before 

 breakfast, as I walked around and ran my knife into the spongy 

 bark. A little later when we started out on our tour of inspec- 

 tion, the Importer, who would not ride horseback, was fitted 

 out with a sort of buckboard. drawn by a mule and driven by a 

 Southern darkey known as Jake. The rest of us rode horses. 



Almost the first thing that struck me about the planting 

 problem down there was the remarkable prevalence of the 

 morning glory vine. Just as soon as the land is cleared and 

 planted it takes possession, and if it were not cut down con- 

 stantly around the young rubber trees, it would most effect- 

 ually smother them. When the trees get a good start, the vine 

 suddenly dies out and the grass comes in. My belief had al- 

 ways been that for grass to get into rubber was fatal to the 

 growth and productiveness of the tree. I saw acres down therr. 

 however, with the grass growing among the three year old trees, 

 and they were apparently as healthy and thrifty as they could 

 possibly have been. A little later the shade of the tree seems 

 to discourage the growth of the grass and in one planting, where 

 the trees were between lour and five years old, the grass had 

 practiciillv disappeared. 



The refusal of the Caslilloa 

 to put up with too much water 

 ivas emphasized by a section 

 of land, containing perhaps 

 ten acres, on the Manhattan 

 plantation, where during the 

 heavy rains the water had not 

 drained away quickly enough 

 and most of the trees had 

 died. 



Speaking of the rain in this 

 section, the local report is that 

 there is about 250 inches a 

 year. I don't know that that 

 is the result of actual meas- 



WALDRON'S "CANADA" PLANTATION. 



u r e m e n t , but 

 while we were 

 there it certainly 

 .rained about as 

 easily as it does 

 in any part of the 

 world. During 

 a forenoon's ride 

 we would often 

 go through three 

 or lour showers, 

 not heavy ones, 

 but like the gen- 

 tlest sort of re- 

 freshing spring 

 rain. The eleva 

 tion of the bunch 

 of plantation- 

 that we were vis 

 iting is about 250 

 feet above sea 



RESIDENCE OF SIM IRON. 



level, and as a rule, soil was very rich and very well drained. 

 One of the first plantations that we visited was one owned by 



