196 A GLIMPSE OF RUBBER PLANTING 



Castilloa in land that had formerly been used for bananas and were 

 getting excellent results. 



All of this leads up to what I think I have before written, that a 

 deep, open soil, particularly one that cakes at the surface a little and in 

 which there is no chance for standing water, or nothing more than a 

 very brief inundation, is what the Castilloa calls for. 



The interest in the planting of India-rubber in Costa Rica dates 

 back some twelve or fifteen years. As early as 1892 it was reported 

 that the wild trees near the cities and along the coast had been practically 

 exhausted, and that what rubber was gathered came from the more 

 remote valleys. In that year the amount of rubber that came out of the 

 country was a trifle over six thousand dollars worth, less than half the 



RUBBER AND COCAO ALTERNATING., SHOWING METHOD OF CLEANING. 



amount shipped the preceding year. It was about this time that the 

 government began to take an interest in the cultivation of rubber and 

 passed laws against tapping the wild trees, and also offered prizes one 

 for eight thousand dollars and another for five thousand ^dollars for 

 the best plantations of Castilloa rubber. Both of these prizes were taken 

 in 1894 by Minor C. Keith, who installed t\vo plantations near Port 

 Limon, the trees, some twenty-five thousand in number, being planted with 

 bananas and about one hundred and fifty rubber trees to the acre. At 

 the time the prizes* were awarded the trees were said to be eight or nine 

 years old. When the writer visited Costa Rica, no record of them 

 could be found, although they should have been somewhere about twenty 

 years old, and certainly big enough to tap. The gossips of the country 



