ffitness of tbe Uebuantepec SLanDs for Coffee* 365 



I do not agree with Mr. Harriman in his assertion that the India-rubber trees re- 

 quire shade while young. If he takes from the woods small plants which have grown 

 in the shade, and transplants them on cleared ground, it is likely that they will not 

 stand the heat, especially as they suffer a great deal from transplanting, even when 

 that operation is done under the best circumstances. But if he sows the seeds in a 

 nursery without shade and they spring up without shade, he will find that they come 

 stronger and stouter, and if he then transplants them to their final location, he will see 

 that they do not need any shade at all, and that the young plants grow more rapidly 

 and stronger without shade. Very truly yours, 



M. ROMERO. 

 WASHINGTON, D. C., 

 September 25 ', 1893. 



The India- Rubber World, New York, December (Friday) 15, 1893 : 



RUBBER SHADE FOR COFFEE PLANTATIONS. 



By F. 0. Harriman, C.E. 



To the Editor of the " India-Rubber World" : 



The communication from Senor Romero in the issue of your journal for October 

 I5th, on the subject of planting rubber and coffee in conjunction, contains ideas so det- 

 rimental to the coffee interests of the isthmus district that I feel bound, though not 

 wishing to take issue publicly with Senor Romero, to say something further in the 

 same connection. The eyes of the world are fixed upon the Isthmus of Tehuantepec 

 as a connecting link in the highway of commerce between the Atlantic and the Pacific, 

 and its consequent advantage of soon being within easy reach of the entire world ; and 

 coffee-growing is daily becoming more and more important in the development of this 

 section. As T have tried to point out in your pages heretofore, India-rubber may be 

 made a factor in profitably extending this industry. Hence my continued attention to 

 the subject. 



Coffee, wherever planted on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and also on the foot- 

 hills and Atlantic plains of the States of Vera Cruz and Tabasco, requires shade ; even 

 the old plantations of the Cordoba and Jalapa districts were shaded to a greater or less 

 extent, and at present, even in these altitudes, much rubber will be found for this 

 purpose. From the Mexican Trader Handbook No. I, Coffee-Growing in Mexico, 

 by J. P. Taylor, I quote as follows (page 26) : 



44 Shade. According to Mr. Hugo Finck, the coffee-tree requires shade up to the 

 altitude of from 3000 to 3500 feet above the level of the sea. From 3500 to 5000 feet 

 shade is not absolutely necessary, although the coffee-trees which have it live longer, 

 but their product is less. At Cordoba, Jalapa, and other districts in the State of Vera- 

 cruz, the banana-tree is the favorite one for shade, but, as Mr. Finck says, it is a tree 

 which so rapidly exhausts the soil that coffee-trees beneath it do not bear more than 

 eight or ten years. Mr. Julio Rossignon gives it as his opinion that the method which 

 some planters employ of shading their coffee-trees with bananas is a bad one. The 

 banana, while it maintains humidity in the soil, takes too much of the richness out of 

 the earth. On the other hand, in the return rendered the government by the city 

 council of Jalapa, the banana is recommended as the best tree for shade, on the ground 

 that it has the property of attracting to itself such moisture as may be in the atmos- 

 phere, thus bestowing freshness and luxuriance upon the coffee-plant which it covers. 

 There can be no doubt, however, that the banana is selected as a shade-tree chiefly 

 because it bears valuable fruit, which, on the Mexican or inter-oceanic railways, readily 

 realizes from $r to $1.25 per arroba (25 pounds). Beside the banana, the orange, the 



