n8 RUBBER PLANTING ON THE 



height of twenty-two feet. The banner Castilloa was a seedling planted 

 in the open, that measured thirty-two inches in circumference 

 and twenty-five feet high. All of these trees had every 

 appearance of health and vigor, and gave forth milk abundantly. From 

 the records shown me, they were a trifle over four years old. In 

 the second instance, grown in partial shade, such as produced fine 

 cacao, with the land more level and not well drained, the trees being 

 planted at exactly the same time, and from the same lot of seed, I got 

 an average of 4.6 inches for circumference a foot above the ground, and 

 an average height of six feet. Anyone would not seem to need a more 

 graphic illustration than this of the necessity for observing proper con- 

 ditions in planting, and further, as a warning against planting in badly 

 drained land or in the shade. 



It is well to note that where these failures appeared there were 

 several wild rubber trees that we estimated to be twenty-five or thirty 

 years old. They seemed to be perfectly healthy and bled freely. The 

 only reasonable explanation of this is that they were seedlings that grew 

 up slowly in the densest sort of forest when the tremendous surface 

 growth was so luxuriant as to be able to partially drain the ground 

 through its great leaf areas, and also lift and make it porous by the 

 leverage of myriads of thrusting roots. The partial clearing of the land 

 later stopped most of this aerial drainage, and the subsequent rotting of 

 the roots allowed the ground to sink into a solid, water-sodden mass. 



The land at La Buena Ventura seemed to be first leaf mold, then 

 a rich, yellow loam, three or more feet deep, and under that a blue, 

 clayey ooze, as if from the bottom of a tropical ocean bed. It was rolling 

 land, as a rule, very well drained, and capable of growing almost 

 any tropical product. The Castilloa orchard, through which I tramped 

 many times, had in it about two hundred and forty thousand trees, 

 from one to four years of age. All of them were planted from the 

 seed, except a small percentage taken- frcm nursery stcck to make up 

 for the occasional failure of a seedling. 



One result of my early observation, and one that grew with each 

 day's experience, was the conviction that a knowledge of climate, rain- 

 falls, soils, drainage, etc., is an absolute necessity from the beginning, 

 in the selection of suitable sites for rubber plantations. In other words, 

 the expert tropical agriculturist, well equipped with common sense, is 

 most likely to be the one who starts right. For example, one plans to 

 plant the Castilloa. It is a soft, wood tree, a tree that from its physical 

 formation is not built to stand high winds, that with its long taproot 



