

DIFFICULTIES OF FOREST PLANTING. 55 



would be very poor policy to risk permanent injury from weak spind- 

 ling growth, which overcrowding would undoubtedly cause. More is 

 likely to be lost than gained by trees standing at less than 8 feet for 

 even a few years. Better than uniform close planting would be to set 

 the north and south rows farther apart than the trees in the rows. 

 With a given number of trees this would secure the maximum of 

 shade on the ground, because the morning and afternoon sun would 

 not shine down the rows. The cleaning of the land or the cultivation 

 of a catch crop or a shade crop between the rows would also be facili- 

 tated. The distances would depend on the size which the Castilla 

 trees were expected to attain in any given locality, the rows from 12 

 to 20 feet apart, the trees from 8 to 12 feet in the rows being fair 

 average estimates. 



METHODS OF CLEARING LAND FOR RUBBER PLANTING. 



The question of shade is also involved with that of the method of 

 clearing the land. It is an almost universal custom in tropical coun- 

 tries to clear land by burning the dried forest growth which has been 

 cut down. In fact, the primitive agriculture of the natives of tropical 

 regions could scarcely be conducted on any other basis. There is 

 much loss of fertility by the destruction of vegetable matter and humus, 

 but the amount of labor required to thorough!} 7 clear a piece of forest 

 land in the Tropics is prohibitively great. The fire not only removes 

 the tangled mass of brush, but it performs an even more useful serv- 

 ice in killing the stumps and roots which would otherwise reoccupy 

 the land with new growth in a few weeks, and would remain indefinitely 

 to dispute possession with anything which might be planted. To grow 

 a herbaceous crop on unburned land under such conditions would be 

 extremely difficult, but a tree culture is much more feasible, though 

 whether the method of partial clearing is to be generally advised is 

 not so certain. The gain, if any, is more likely to be found in the 

 sustained fertility of the soil than in any saving of labor in clearing 

 and cleaning the land; for although there ma} 7 be a saving at first which 

 will permit an enterprise to reach a paying basis sooner, yet there is 

 in prospect a long and expensive struggle with the persistent natural 

 vegetation rooted in the soil. Moreover, it should be recognized that 

 the conditions under which a plantation is set out in a partially cleared 

 forest are of necessity only temporary. Many of the forest trees 

 will not long survive the unwonted exposure to greater dryness and 

 heat and to the attacks of parasites. The thinning of the forest greatly 

 increases the force of the wind against the remaining tall trees, and in 

 falling these will injure the rubber trees and will often require to be 

 cut away not merely at one point, but at several points. Whatever 

 the merits of the case from the standpoint of the stockholder, the plan- 

 tation manager of the future is very likely to wish that his predeces- 

 sors had adopted clean culture. The overhead shade which discourages 



