ISTHMUS OF TEHUANTEPEC 115 



SECOND LETTER. 



A PROSPEROUS PRIVATE PLANTATION HUNTING FOR BARREN RUBBER TREES 

 PLANTING IN FAVORABLE AND UNFAVORABLE LOCATIONS CONDITIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL 

 PLANTING THE DRY AND RAINY SEASONS VISITS TO NEIGHBORING PLANTATIONS 

 IXTAL SNAKES LA JUNTA THE AGRICULTURAL Mozo NEGRO LABORERS A 

 MIDNIGHT RIDE FREEDOM FROM PLANT PESTS. 



THE site of the plantation, La Bueria Ventura, five years ago 

 was virgin forest. At that time Mr. James C. Harvey and his 

 son, Clarence, purchased for themselves and their associates, (a 

 private corporation), one thousand acres of land and prepared to develop 

 it along the most practical lines. When the senior Mr. Harvey 

 came to Mexico, it was with the idea of planting coffee, but after months 

 of study and a personal inspection of most of the Isthmus country, he 

 decided that India-rubber offered the best opportunity for profit, and 

 therefore he has turned the larger part of his land into a plantation of 

 Castilloa elastica. I am enlarging upon this trifle because, to my cer- 

 tain knowledge, the gentleman under consideration is not only an expert 

 horticulturist and botanist, but has studied tropical agriculture in Cen- 

 tral and South America, and in the East Indies and West Indies, and 

 beyond this he and his associates offered no stock for sale, but went into 

 the business to make money out of their own investment of capital, 

 energy, and knowledge. Such a plantation must, without fail, give the 

 visitor the best possible view of the practical end of the business. . There 

 are, of course, many such private estates in the tropics, but it happened 

 that this was the one that I knew most of, and to visit which I had a most 

 cordial invitation. 



Here I was, therefore, installed in the palm thatched house, with 

 its earthern floor and bamboo walls, that for five years had been the 

 home of these hardy pioneers. The domicile was situated at one end 

 of a long ridge, on each side of which, with a rare eye to effect, were 

 planted gorgeous flowering and foliage plants, and trees valuable for 

 fruit and for ornament. Very modestly the presiding genius showed 

 me sixty-five different species of palms, probably the largest collection 

 in the Americas. Not only were there palms native to the tropical parts 

 of America, but there were specimens from Java, Ceylon, New Guinea, 

 Queensland, the Fiji Islands, New South Wales, and a score of other 

 remote places. These were gathered, not as part of the planting proposi- 



