Ai'KiL L 1911. 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD. 



223 



VV'e received a hearty welcome from the manager, a tall, ath- 

 letic, striking looking young man, who was accompanied by two 

 huge and friendly deer hounds. This plantation, so said the 

 Government Official, had considerable good rubber, and \vc 

 started out to find it, but almost at the outset met with a tem- 

 porary check. Between us and the rubber field yawned a ditch 

 some fifteen feet deep, with a little water and considerable mud 

 in the bottom. It was bridged by a square log about twenty 

 feet long and six inches wide, across which our guide, his dogs 

 and coolies paced as calmly as if it were Brooklyn bridge. The 

 Balata Lady pluckily faced it and would have walked across, 

 although in fear and trembling, but the Balata Man would not 

 allow it and bade us go on and not wait for them. While we 

 tarried for a moment, the manager produced two long poles, 

 which were hastily stuck down into the mud by the side of the 

 bridge, then placing a coolie on the bank at each end, who held 

 another long bamboo pole for a balustrade, w^e all crossed in 

 safety. In reality, this balustrade would not have saved one 

 from falling in the slightest degree. It was simply the moral 

 effect of its presence there that enabled the dizzy ones to walk 

 safely and straightly. 



Here we saw some splendid rubber, Hevca 2'/^ j-ears old. 

 There were some 1,200 acres of it, planted 100 to the acre, in 

 distinctly clayey soil, which was, however, well drained. In ad- 

 dition to this, in another direction, were some 6,000 seedlings, 

 that appeared to be six months to a year old and which looked 

 very healthy. 



Quite near here is the Waterland estate, already mentioned 

 as having the oldest Hevea trees in the colony. They are only 

 eight in number, and are used as seed producers, and while we 

 were there were producing at the rate of 1,500 seeds a week, all 

 of which found ready sale. 



The plantation of Voorburg lies down the river from 

 Paramaribo, and, like most of the great plantations, must be 

 approached from the water. We journeyed to it in the Helena, 

 a little steam launch named after the Balata Man's wife. This 

 estate, an old one with some 1,500 acres under culti- 

 vation, was years ago a great sugar producer. To-day it grows 

 coffee and cocoa, and if it fulfils its promise will soon be a not- 

 able rubber producer. The place was beautifully administered, 

 and after examining the factory where the coffee and cocoa were 

 prepared for market, we found a conveyance awaiting us for 

 an examination of the plantation itself. 



C.^NAL THROUGH "La LiDERTE." 



Tvi'U'AI. Pl.ANTATlnN MaNACER's HoUSE. 



Only one who has ridden neurasthenic tropical horses or 

 opinionated mules over plantation trails can appreciate tlic lux- 

 ury of a state inspection in a roomy punt drawn by a slowly 

 moving coolie who pads along the towpath mile after mile. 

 The canals were very wide and the water clear and wholesome. 

 In them were many leaping fish, an occasional alligator, and the 

 four eyed surface swimming fish that is one of the curiosities of 

 the lower Amazon. We passed through the carefully tended 

 cocoa and coffee plantings to quite an extensive field of two year 

 old Heveas, interplanted with bananas. Then we went to the 

 older planting, which consisted of 20,000 trees. These were 

 planted 10 x 10, and were very healthy and strong, and for a 

 guess would run from four to six inches in diameter three feet 

 from the ground. The soil in which they grew had been used to 

 produce sugar, then coffee, then cocoa. The drains that lay 

 about five feet below the surface were so dry that one could 

 walk in most of them without dampening the shoe soles. In 

 spite of this, the surface soil on the tops of tlie dykes which 

 had been exposed to the tropical sunlight for a month without 

 a single shower when turned up with the point of an umbrella 

 was gratifyingly moist. 



The trees were planted from stumps, some of which were 

 two years old before being cut back, but they grew just the 

 same. Close by was a thrifty planting of Funtumia, by far the 

 most beautiful of any of the rubber producers. 



From Voorburg we went 4own the Suriname until in full sight 

 of the sea, then up tlie Commeowyne by huge sugar estates with 

 their little settlements clustered along the river banks, passing 

 an occasional fruit barge, steered by coolies with huge sweeps, 

 who anchored when the tide was against them and ate and slept, 

 then when the tide turned used it instead of motive power to 

 take them to their destination. There were other craft, to be 

 sure, dugouts, sailing canoes, tent boats, and an occasional steam' 

 launch, but the river was fairly free of traffic and the big blue 

 cranes and snow white egrets flapped slowly out of the way, 

 as much at home and almost as fearless as they were when set- 

 tlements were unknown. Dinner time came as w-e were still steam- 

 ing up the river and we enjoyed a substantial repast. The meal 

 was scarcely finished when the anchor was dropped off Katwyk. 

 It was low tide and the tender took us to the landing steps. 



The plantation named was not our objective, which was Wed- 

 erzorg, an old and beautifully kept place that had been under 

 cultivation for 50 years. The manager was absent in Europe, 

 but his assistant willingly showed us the rubber, of which he 

 had plantings of all ages from six months to four years. He 

 had, for example, some 650 acres planted from one year 

 old seedlings, the trees themselves being now four years 

 old. They looked fairly well, but were beginning to show 



