RUBBER PLANTING 



The Discovery of Rubber in America. 



As the reader may perhaps have already anticipated, 

 the first notice of the use of rubber comes to us in the 

 history of the voyages of Columbus. Columbus found 

 that the natives of Hayti possessed among other amuse- 

 ments a game of ball. " The balls were of the gum of 

 a tree, and although large, were lighter and bounced 

 better than the wind balls of Castile." 



A fuller account was given by Juan de Torquemada 

 in 1615. This writer describes a tree, called by the 

 natives Ulequahuitl (Castilloa elastica), which was held 

 in high estimation in Central America. The method of 

 collection of the rubber, which flows out as a milky 

 white substance when the tree is wounded, is described, 

 and also its coagulation by setting in calabashes and 

 subsequent boiling in water. Sometimes the latex was 

 simply smeared over the bodies of the collectors and 

 allowed to dry a method still employed by some 

 primitive tribes. The rubber so prepared was used for 

 making balls, and for shoes for tumblers and jesters, 

 whose antics it assisted ; and a medicinal oil was 

 extracted from it. Even at this early date the Spaniards 

 themselves employed the milk for waterproofing their 

 cloaks. 



The first accurate account of Para rubber is given by 

 C. M. de la Condamine, who visited the Amazon country 

 on an astronomical mission in 1735. He describes 



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