80 CENTRAL AMERICAN RUBBER TREE. 



and reckoned with, but the rubber industry has only commenced the 

 accumulation of experience. 



Neither should it be deemed a sufficient guaranty of the success of 

 a plantation, or even of the good faith of a company, that prominent 

 names should be found among the shareholders or officers. Rubber 

 planting is so far out of the range of ordinary business ventures 

 that men who would be trustwortlry guides on investments at home 

 are by no means proof against the miscalculations which have dis- 

 appointed experienced tropical agriculturists; and it is not to be 

 expected that all rubber companies will be found exempt from the 

 well-known plan of securing indorsement by presents of stock and 

 other less direct considerations by which apparently responsible patron- 

 age is not infrequently secured for new enterprises which can be made 

 to appear "perfectly safe." The history of some of the numerous 

 companies which have been floated in England for operating rubber 

 concessions and plantations would make very interesting reading for 

 the American investor. American rubber-planting enterprises are 

 now much more extensive and on a much more secure footing than the 

 English, but that they will entirely escape similar difficulties is scarcely 

 to be expected. 



Knowledge is lacking hy which it is possible to judge with confi- 

 dence the prospects of all rubber plantations, but there is absolutely 

 no reason why any particular failure of planted rubber should be 

 taken to mean that no cultivated rubber will be productive or that all 

 rubber culture must be a failure. All plant cultures, tropical and 

 temperate, have had their beginnings, so that the fact that rubber is a 

 new agricultural product affords not the slightest reason why it may 

 not be successful. Yet it can not be maintained that rubber is "as 

 safe as any other crop," for the reason that there has been no oppor- 

 tunity to accumulate the experimental knowledge which would prevent 

 failures. 



REQUIREMENTS FOR SUCCESSFUL RUBBER PLANTATIONS. 



It is hardly possible to set forth the difficulties and uncertain- 

 ties which beset rubber culture without appearing to discourage the 

 planter and the. investor, though in reality there is no such intention, 

 but onl} 1 - the desire that unnecessary mistakes and losses be avoided. 

 There is no wish to warn anybody against rubber culture, either in 

 the tropical islands of the United States or in other countries. The 

 warning is against the idea that success and large profits are or can be 

 assured without the caution and discrimination required for other 

 branches of agriculture and other lines of investment. 



Many factors must contribute to the success of a rubber-planting 

 enterprise, while the lack of anyone of them maj'turn profit into loss. 

 At the risk of repetition, it mav be well to enumerate some of the 

 more important elements: 





