16 CENTRAL AMERICAN RUBBER TREE. 



will improve as the trees increase in age. And }^et it may not be a 

 matter of surprise that with rubber, as with so many other natural 

 products, perfection will be found to depend on some apparently 

 trifling and long-overlooked peculiarity of soil or climate. 



But whatever the true merits or prospects of the Para rubber indus- 

 try of the East Indies, the above report well illustrates the vicissitudes 

 of hope and failure to which new cultures must remain subject until 

 scientific knowledge and practical experience have revealed the prin- 

 cipal factors and shown something of their relative significance. 



It is impossible to tell in advance which fact will be of directly prac- 

 tical importance in the development of a new and complicated subject 

 like rubber culture. Nothing snould be disregarded which tends to 

 bring the rubber-producing species into relation with the facts which 

 have been accumulated with regard to other plants, or which can serve 

 as a suggestion for the solution of any of the all-too-numerous 

 problems. 



EXTENT OF THE CASTILLA RUBBER INDUSTRY. 



At present the two centers of rubber culture are located in the East 

 Indies, particularly in Ce} 7 lon and the British dependencies of the 

 Malay Peninsula, and in Central America and southern Mexico. The 

 India Rubber World has recently attempted a census of the rubber- 

 planting stock companies of Mexico, and 26 of these have reported 

 a total of 11,117 acres planted with 5,443,105 trees. The numerous 

 companies which did not report and the many estates owned by indi- 

 viduals would probably bring the total area devoted to rubber to the 

 neighborhood of 20,000 acres, or several times the space planted with 

 Hevea in the East Indies. In the above estimate no account is taken 

 of the numerous rubber plantations of the other Central American 

 countries and the beginnings which have been made with Castilla in 

 Colombia and Venezuela, which would mean an addition of several 

 thousand acres to the estimate for Castilla. 



CASTILLA IN THE WEST INDIES. 



Castilla was introduced into the botanical gardens of the British 

 West Indian colonies shortly after it was sent to British India in 1875, 

 but rubber culture seems not to have become established in any of 

 them, although numerous favorable reports from Trinidad and other 

 islands have been published. 



Castilla appears to produce good rubber and to do remarkably well in districts in 

 Dominica where the average rainfall is about 70 inches a year. I am satisfied that 

 the soil and climate of that island are suitable for the cultivation of rubber 

 trees. * * * 



We find the Central American rubber tree most useful in Jamaica, and I am 

 recommending estate owners in some districts to plant these trees along their bound- 

 aries so that, if they are not used for anything else, they will make excellent fence 



