314 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[July 



1902. 



A RUBBER PLANTATION IN GUATEMALA. 



TH E large specin.en o( crude rubber shown at the entrance 

 to the Guatemala pavilion at the Paris Exposition of 

 1900, and for which a gold medal was awarded, was 

 produced from cultivated trees (Castilloa elastica) on 

 the hacienda "El Baul," in Guatemala, on the Pacific slope. 

 This plantation was specially mentioned by Dr. Paul Preuss, in 

 reporting on his expedition to Central and South America, 

 under the auspices of the German colonial committee. It has 

 more recently been referred to at length — because of its size, 

 of the care taken in the extraction of rubber, and of the good 

 quality produced — in the Journal d' Agriculture Tropicale 

 (Paris), from which the details that follow have mainly been 

 derived. 



The plantation " El Baul," until recently the property of 

 loachim Asturias, is now in possession of a wholesale mercan- 

 tile firm of Hamburg, who are extensively interested, like 

 many other German houses, in coffee planting in Guatemala, 

 and its management is in the hands of Fritz Konig. He. by 

 the way, is a brother-in-law of P. Ossaye, owner of the coffee, 

 vanila, and rubber plantations " Arenal " and " Seamay," in the 

 same region. Such details are mentioned here as indicating 

 that large and permanent planting interests exist in Guate- 

 mala, based upon outside capital, as a result of which much ex- 

 perience has been gained in such matters, which is shared by 

 many persons of repute and success, whose confidence in the 

 practicability of rubber cultivation is entitled to considera- 

 tion. 



According to Rene Guerin, director of the Central Labora- 

 tory of Guatemala, writing in xMt Journal d' Agriculture Trop- 

 icale, the plantation " El Baul " comprises about 50,000 rubber 

 trees, of which 30,000 have reached a productive stage, being 

 from 10 to 15 years old. Dr. Preuss, by the way, writing two 

 years earlier, mentioned 20,000 trees between the ages of 1 5 and 

 20 years. The soil, very liberally watered, is divided into 

 sandy and black-earth zones, though no difference has been 

 observed either in the growth or the productiveness of the trees 

 planted in the two zones. The vegetation is continuous, but 

 at the beginning of the dry season— March and April, when the 

 seeds ripen — the leaves turn slightly yellow and fall. 



The trees growing in the plains furnish at all seasons a late.v 

 of the same quality. The trees on the higher altitudes, and 

 which are for this reason less well watered, yield during the 

 rainy season a larger quantity of latex than during the dry 

 season. However, as this latex is less rich in caoutchouc, the 

 true yield is the same. The rubber trees which have developed 

 in the plains, exposed to all weathers, begin yielding seed from 

 the third year. Those growing in the woods develop much 

 slower, and at that age have not reached a height above 3 me- 

 ters. But as soon as these have attained the height of the sur- 

 rounding trees, and receive the sun's rays direct, their develop- 

 ment proceeds rapidly and they reach large dimensions and 

 possess exceptional vigor. 



In extracting the latex, incisions are made in the bark hori- 

 zontally, at a distance of 1% inch apart, so as to not girdle 

 the tree completely. The latex coagulates spontaneously on 

 exposure to the air, and at the end of two or three days the 

 rubber can be gathered from the tree in bands, which, after be- 

 ing washed, may be rolled together into balls. Each tree 

 yields about 125 grams of rubber (from incisions in the trunk 

 alone, and without the branches), and as the cuts will heal 



within three months, it is possible to make four extractions 

 each year, giving a total yield of 5oograms [=i,'„ pound.] The 

 annual yield of 1000 grams 1=2! pounds] mentioned in Dr. 

 Preuss's report, resulted from making incisions in the branches 

 as well as the trunks, but this involves an undesirable amount 

 of labor. 



Much thought has been given on the plantation " El Baul " 

 to the choice of a tool for incising the rubber trees, with a 

 view to affording a suitable outlet for the latex, without cut- 

 ting into the wood, which contains no latex, and the wound- 

 ing of which tends to decay. Dr. Preuss found in use in Gua- 

 temala for this purpose a sort of transformed saber, a sketch 

 of which appears in the first of the twocuts herewith. Senor As- 



^^3= 



turias has had made to order, in the United States, the tool illus- 

 trated in the second cut, which is regarded as superior to the old 

 model. Thelattercomprisesablade of tempered steel — square 

 at the end, about 3 inches long, and at the top about i ;j inches 

 wide — mounted in a hard wood handle 3^2 inches long. The 

 steel blade diminishes in thickness from the handle, until at 

 the other end it does not exceed the thickness of a playing 

 card. The left angle of the blade is turned over so as to form 

 a rounded gutter, about finger wide, and at 45 degrees to the 

 axis of the tool. The left side of the blade is notched right at 

 the gutter, so that the lower end of the gutter projects at that 

 side. The parts that do the cutting are the two sides of the 

 turned over angle. 



M. Guerin states that Sefior Asturias intends trying a new 

 process of extraction, by the employing a vacuum, in the hope 

 of accelerating the flow of latex, and adds: " It would be de- 

 sirable if other cultivators, intelligent and progressive like M. 

 Asturias, would display the same activity in the improvement 

 of rubber cultivation and the rubber product." In too many 

 cases, however, the collection of rubber is left to the natives, 

 who injure the trees unnecessarily, besides producing a poor 

 quality of rubber by the use of soap or vegetable compounds, 

 whereas by the spontaneous coagulation of the latex, after the 

 complete elimination of the serum, an article of superior qual- 

 ity may be derived from the same trees. 



It was found by Sefior Asturias that trees on his plantation 

 which presented precisely the same appearance, yet yielded 

 different qualities of rubber. M. Guerin forwarded specimens 

 to the museum of natural history at Paris, where Jules Pois- 

 son. of the museum staff, has discovered differences in the 

 fructiferous receptacles of the seeds, and is further engaged in 

 endeavoring to discover whether different species exist. While 

 some of the trees yield caoutchouc of a superior quality, the 

 product of others remains after coagulation sticky, glue like, 

 and with little elasticity. There is also a perceptible difference 

 in the color of the latex, that from both trees being white, but 

 in one case with a tinge of yellow and the other with a grayish 

 tinge. 



The question of differences in the product of the Castilloa 

 elastica is by no means new, but generally the trees not yield- 

 ing the true rubber have been supposed to bear outward 

 marks by means of which they could be avoided by persons 

 having any experience in hunting rubber. By the way, in con- 

 nection with the subject, it is interesting to quote from Dr. 



