Rubber Plantations in Mexico 



4*3 



picture No. 2. The ulero makes with 

 his machete diagonal lines of gashes, 

 extending nearly around the tree, like 

 the letter V, the point being downward. 

 The milk flows down these channels to 

 one side of the tree, whence it is led 

 down to a cavity hollowed in the ground 

 and lined with large, tough leaves. 

 These are dexterously lifted up, and 

 the milk is poured out into a calabash 

 or other vessel and carried away to be 

 coagulated. The diagonal channels are 

 from two to three feet apart, and those 

 of each successive tapping are inserted 

 ■ between the older scars. The milk will 

 all run out of the tree in about an hour. 



A Castilla tree 5 feet in diameter will 

 yield when first cut about 20 gallons of 

 milk, making 50 pounds of rubber. The 

 tree may be cut again after the lapse of 

 a few months. That the trees at La 

 Zacualpa shown in picture No. 1 have 

 been able to survive so much of this 

 barbarous treatment and are still vigor- 

 ous and heavily laden with fruit seems 

 to indicate great tenacity of life, and yet 

 even this rough handling represents an 

 improvement upon the former custom 

 of cutting the trees down entirely or 

 hewing steps in them for the ulero to 

 climb up. Instead of the forked stick 

 used as a ladder at La Zacualpa, the 

 large forest trees are ascended for 30 

 feet or more by means of ropes, vines, 

 climbing irons, and steps cut in the 

 trunk. 



The studies which the Department of 

 Agriculture is making in regard to start- 

 ing rubber plantations on American soil 

 are specially important in view of the 

 disappearance at no distant day of the 

 rubber forests of Brazil and Africa, 

 whence nearly nine-tenths of the sup- 

 ply of rubber now comes. The world 

 is almost entirely dependent on savages, 

 or on natives too barbarous to be called 

 civilized, to get the rubber out of the 

 forests. They, tempted by the high 

 price which rubber brings, swarm into 

 the rubber forests and chop the trees 

 down to save time in collecting the milk. 



Mr K. K. Kennedy, U. S. consul at 

 Para, Brazil, has recently sent to the 

 Bureau of Statistics of the Department 

 of Commerce and Labor the startling 

 reports of two expeditions which have 

 been examining conditions in the rubber 

 country.* Captain Gerdeau, after ex- 

 ploring, investigating, and canvassing 

 the territory of the upper Amazon and 

 its tributaries in the richest rubber belt 

 in South America for more than a year, 

 advises him that the rubber gatherers 

 are cutting down the forests with amaz- 

 ing rapidity and improvidence, far be- 

 yond what his previous information had 

 led him to expect. He expresses grave 

 doubts if the supply can be kept up un- 

 less stringent measures to protect the 

 rubber forests be immediately taken. 



Robert Blair Ewart was a member of 

 an American exploring expedition which 

 started inland from Lima, Peru, crossed 

 the Andes, and then descended the tribu- 

 taries of the Amazon and the great river 

 to Para. Mr Ewart described to Consul 

 Kennedy the rubber-hunting in eastern 

 Peru, along the Ucayali River, a tribu- 

 tary of the Amazon: 



" The Ucayali is a magnificentstream, 

 as large as the Mississippi, and traverses 

 one of the finest rubber districts in South 

 America. 1 11 all this great territory 

 there is but one man who is producing 

 fine rubber. All the rest are caucho 

 hunters. These latter are the bane of 

 the country, and have done incalculable 

 damage in the past few years. They 

 do not bleed the trees in the regular 

 way, but cut them down and extract 

 the gum by the wholesale. Thus every 

 year enormous forests are destroyed, 

 and each year the supply grows lessi and 

 less and the rubber gatherers are dom- 

 pelled to go farther back from ! the 

 rivers. This makes the production of 

 rubber more difficult, dangerous, and 

 expensive each year, and it is only a • 

 question of time when this immense and 

 most important rubber-producing terri- 



* Daily Consular Reports, October 21, 1903 

 (No. 1780). 



