AGRICULTURAL BULLETIN 



STRAITS 



AND 



FEDERATED MALAY STATES. 



No. i.] JANUARY, 1907. [Vol. VI. 



RUBBER PLANTING IN MEXICO AND 

 CENTRAL AMERICA 



By PEHR OLSSON— SEFFER, Ph.D. 



Very little has been said or published so far about rubber 

 planting in Mexico and Central America. So little, in fact, that 

 people generally do not seem to know that anything is done in 

 those countries as regards rubber, except a few erratic attempts at 

 cultivating that much despised Costilla rubber tree. A short time 

 ago I met a Ceylon planter in Japan. When our conversation 

 turned towards rubber and I had received many tales about Ceylon, 

 I volunteered the information that we had one or two plantations 

 also in Mexico. He was highly surprised. 



A desire to dispel some similar views, which I have found in 

 Singapore, has tempted me to publish this article, which partly 

 consists of some advance sheets from my small handbook, " Culti- 

 vation of the Costilla Rubber Tree," now in the printer's hands, 

 and partly of data obtained from my first Annual Report from 

 La Zacualpa Botanical Station and Rubber Laboratory, which is 

 soon to go to press. I have added some reflexions which will 

 perhaps give this article a rather pronounced tendency, and I have 

 advanced some ideas which all of the Mexican planters are not yet 



The Name "Castilla." 



I wish first to explain why I am persistently using the generic 

 name Castilla, instead of Castilloa, to which most persons are 

 accustomed. I go on the principle that everything should be called 

 by its true name. The right name of the Central American rubber 

 tree is Castilla. It was first described and named by the botanist 

 Cervantes in 1794, and the description was printed the same year in 

 " Suplemento a la Gaceta de Literatura." It is here written Castilla, 



