THE METHODS OF TAPPING CASTILLOA RUBBER 

 TREES IN MEXICO, AND THE HELD OF RUBBER 

 WHICH THE TREES FURNISH. 



By ASHMORE RUSSAN. 



Director of the Soconusco Rubber Plantations, Ltd.; 

 London Director of the La Zacualpa Plantation 

 Company. 



IT was with some considerable hesitation that I accepted 

 the invitation of the Honorary Organizing Secretaries of 

 this Congress to prepare a paper on Castilloa rubber, the 

 reason being that I felt that I could not write much in 

 favour of the cultivation of the Castilloa rubber tree, and 

 did not wish in any way to disparage it. However, if I 

 keep to the terms of the reference, with just a few diver- 

 gencies, and also keep to my own personal experiences, 

 I may be able to be just to the Castilloa and also some- 

 what instructive. 



The request of the Honorary Organizing Secretaries 

 was that I should deal particularly with the methods 

 employed in tapping plantation Castilloa rubber trees in 

 Mexico and the yields of rubber obtained on the com- 

 mercial scale from trees of different ages. They also 

 stated that information would be welcome as to any 

 experimental work which has been carried out with a 

 view to devising methods of tapping to increase the yield, 

 and also as to the differences in the yield of rubber from 

 the different varieties (or species) of Castilloa which occur 

 in Mexico. 



That is the reference, and I propose in the main to 

 confine myself to it. 



By way of preface I should say that I made the 

 acquaintance of the Castilloa rubber tree in Mexico in 

 the year 1900, when I visited, amongst other plantations, 

 those of La Zacualpa, in the Soconusco District of the 

 State of Chiapas. In the La Zacualpa plantations I have 

 been interested ever since that date, and with regard to 



