September i, 1901.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



S55 



PLANTING "CASTILLOA ELASTICA " IN OPEN PATHWAYS. 



By Francis Child Nicholas, Ph. D* 



TO THE Editor ok The India Ruhbkr World: On 

 the rubber estates belonging to The South American 

 Land and Exploration Co., Limited, the following re- 

 sults have been obtained : Rubber trees (Castilloa 

 elastica) on the company's property in the Sierra Nevada de 

 Santa Marta of Colombia are now two years old. The com- 

 pany has had the advantage of almost unlimited lands for its 

 operations. The seeds were collected in Costa Rica, and 

 reached the property in fair condition ; after their arrival plant- 

 ing was commenced almost immediately. The plan adopted 

 was to cut pathways through the forests by the side of streams, 

 and along rivers. The seeds having sprouted before they 

 reached the property, there was urgent necessity to plant in 

 haste. 



The seeds were put in the ground about the middle of June, 

 1899, and the paths were cut with a view of maintaining a deep 

 shade to protect the young trees for the first four months, 

 July, August, and a part of September, being dry and hot in 

 that region. It was intended, when the autumn rains should 

 set in, to cut away overhanging trees and underbrush for the 

 purpose of providing sufficient sun and plenty of air for the 

 development of the young trees. Where the seedlings were 

 too close together, cross paths were to have been made for 

 transplanting. Before these plans could be carried out, the 

 civil war, so lately disastrous in Colombia, made it necessary to 

 suspend operations, and for eighteen months the young rubber 

 trees were almost abandoned. The only thing that could be 

 done was to clean away the dead leaves, which, falling from 

 surrounding trees, threatened to smother the seedlings ; but 

 even this work was not thorough, and for months at a time the 

 young rubber trees were without any care. 



Work was resumed on the company's plantations during the 

 spring and early summer of the present year, and is now being 

 regularly carried on. It was found on cleaning up the rub- 

 ber plantations that, while losses had been heavy, there 

 were thousands of young rubber trees, and that some of them 

 were doing remarkably well, showing the first developments of 

 that enormous length of trunk, found among trees of the forest 

 which have grown upward until the sunlight above the wood- 

 lands has been reached — a condition that produces a great 

 length of trunk for bleeding, promising pounds of rubber where 

 less favorable trees would yield only ounces. Many varied 

 conditions of development were found at the company's plan- 

 tations, the most important being as follows: Trees on moist, 

 but not wet land, where the surrounding forests had been 

 opened to allow a fair amount of sunlight, but not enough to 

 burn the young trees, were the best. At such places many of 

 the trees presented a growth sufficiently vigorous to promise 

 the development of strong lubber producing trees without any 

 further attention. After these the most favorable were those 

 trees growing on moist land, but with the sunlight and free cir- 

 culation of the air impeded by the surrounding forests ; these, 

 however, were doing well, and while their growth was not 

 phenomenal, it was very satisfactory. Trees showing a rather 



♦The writer of this article has previously contributed two papers to The India 

 RuBDBR World, as follows : "Some Recent Developments in Rubber Cultiva- 

 tion" [October I. 189S,— pnge 337I, pointing out^his reasons in behalf of the method 

 of planting, the results of which are here noted, and " Transportation of Seeds of 

 the Castilloa elastica^^ [April i. iqoo-page 180J. recording his experience in con- 

 veying such seeds from Costa Rica to Colombia. — Thb Editor. 



unfavorable development were those on moist ground but too 

 much in the open sun. Growth had been vigorous, but there 

 were too many sunburned buds to give much promise of suc- 

 cessful maturity. Of very poor development were trees 

 growing in rather dry places in the hot sun. Many of these 

 were dead; the few that remained were very small, some 

 being only two or three inches high. Of very bad ap- 

 pearance were those trees which were on rather dry land 

 in the deep shade, almost entirely cut off from the sun. 

 Nearly all of these were dead ; among the very few remaining 

 alive none were vigorous, many had not progressed beyond 

 the first stages of growth, though wood was forming where the 

 tender shoot had been ; they were simply dwarfed trees, that 

 had never progressed after the cotyledons had been absorbed. 



It appears from these results that, under ordinary circum- 

 stances, the Castilloa elastica requires for its best development 

 damp soil, open shade, and some sunlight. The best trees on 

 the plantations of the South American Land and Exploration 

 Co., Limited, at their Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta properties, 

 are on rather damp land, and have had about one hour's full 

 sunlight each day. The very favorable results that have been 

 obtained on these plantations, after subjecting them to nearly 

 eighteen months' abandonment, is to my mind strong evidence 

 that the best method for planting Castilloa elastica is along open 

 pathways through the forests, which enable the planter to 

 make an adjustment of shade and sunlight suitable to the 

 special requirements of the locality selected for planting; and 

 further I am fully convinced that to clear all the land and keep 

 it clean is a useless expense, that a series of pathways intersect- 

 ing at right angles will give quite as many trees to the acre as 

 on cleared land ; and, that under some climatic conditions at 

 least, too much sun will burn the tender buds of young rubber 

 trees ; and, influencing older trees, will harden the bark, there- 

 by checking the flow of latex through the ducts, which in Cas- 

 tilloa elastica are just under the bark ; a condition which when 

 the bark is too hard may impair the tree's capacity to produce 

 rubber. 



While I advocate open pathways for Castilloa elastica, jus- 

 tice to all conditions requires a brief notice of results obtained 

 at plantations in Jamaica, owned by the same company. These 

 plantations are in Portland parish, where rains are excessive, 

 the ground usually saturated with water, and penetrating fogs 

 are frequent. Here the most vigorous among the young 

 rubber trees are those where there is an abundance of sunlight. 

 At places where there is some shade, the trees are vigorous and 

 healthy, but are not so large as those in the more open places ; 

 their leaves are a deeper green, and perhaps they are rather 

 more healthy than those grown in the sun. Trees which were 

 planted where there is a very limited amount of sun, are strag- 

 gling and unhealthy. In the few places where there is little, if 

 any sun, the trees are nearly all dead. 



The advantages of open pathways were demonstrated in Ja- 

 maica; for, on my last annual inspection of the company's prop- 

 erties, it was a simple matter to order that overhanging 

 branches should be cut away to provide sufficient sun to meet 

 the requirements of this region, and at present all the com- 

 pany's trees in Jamaica are growing vigorously. 



These results furnish strong evidence that Castilloa elastica 

 requires an adjustment of sunlight and shade, varying with the 



