CHAPTER III 

 THE PRINCIPAL RUBBER DISTRICTS 



General definition of the Amazon industry Collection of 

 castiUoa Rubber-producing area divided into three sections 

 The Lower Amazon Highlands of the Lower Amazon The 

 central districts Rivers Madeira, Purus, and Jurua Population 

 on the River Madeira Rubber-planting on the Madeira, Purus, 

 and Jurua Western section of the Amazon Valley Bolivian 

 rubber districts Buildings on rubber properties Access difficult 

 to upper rivers Expeditions from Peru Acre territory Iquitos. 



THE characteristic features of the Amazon Valley 

 rubber industry vary in a very marked degree in 

 the different sections of the country, and some explana- 

 tion is necessary to emphasize the salient points in the 

 principal districts. As a general rule the industry is 

 understood to consist of the collection of rubber from 

 trees scattered throughout the forests, as opposed to the 

 systematic plan of cultivation in plantations prevailing 

 throughout the Orient. Broadly speaking this popular 

 idea of the Amazon Valley situation is correct, although 

 it is qualified to some extent by the fact that some 

 hundreds of thousands of rubber-trees have been planted 

 from time to time in various localities. An erroneous 

 impression, however, has been conceived in many 

 quarters, that because the rubber is obtained from 

 forest-grown trees it necessitates the annual despatch of 

 numbers of expeditions to the interior regions for the 

 purpose of collecting the product. In former years 



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