Sept, 1, 1898,] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
157 
COFFEE AND RUBBER IN MEXICO. 
A recent mail brought us trom America a very 
Iiandsome volume ou the above suUject, accom- 
panied by the followini; note from the author, 
Mr. M. Romero- — "Washington, Juae 11.— I 
have the jileasure of sending to you by this 
miil, at the request of Mr. Ilawbhorne Hill, 
edicor of the ' India Rubber World,' of New 
York, a copy of the book I have just published 
ill New York entitled 'Coffee and India Rubber 
ia Mexico,' which contains two papers that I 
wr Jte several years ago on the culture in Mexico 
of both staple.'', wliich may be of some interest 
to you. In my paper on ' Coliea Culture' I 
make frequent reference to its culture in Ceylon." 
The full title of the work is " Coffee and India 
Rubber Culture in Mexico preceded by Geographi- 
cal and Statistical notes on Mexico, by Metras 
Romero — G. F. Putnam's Sons, New York and Lon- 
don, 1893." We cannot more tersely or exactly ex- 
plain how Mr. Romere came to write this book 
or how he gained the necessary experience than 
by quoting the first portion of his introduction 
as follows : — 
Whsu, after ssrving five years, fi-om 18:53 to 1S~l 
0,3 Secretary of the Treasury in Mexico under Pre- 
sident Juirez's administration, I was obliged to re- 
sign, my health being so greatly broken down as to 
mika it impossible for ma to continue discharging 
the duties of tint responsible, and at the time, very 
diffi-'Ult office, feeling that if I remained in the City 
of Mexico, I could not regain my health as I would 
ba subject to continual mental ex'jitemeut, I made 
up ray mind to live in the country and occupy my 
timj in agricultural pui-suits. iicfore deciding what 
branch of agriculture I should follow, I mxde a tour 
of inspection to the most favored regions of Mexico 
and found that india-rubber and coffae raising seemsd 
to be themosc promising and profitable undertakings. 
The place which I thought best adapted to both of 
these products was the district of Saoonusco, one of 
the counties of the State of Chiapas, in southeastern 
Mexico, bordering on Guatemala, and I concluded to 
settle there and apply myself to coffee and India- 
rubber culture. 
In the meanwhile, coffee raising had attained con- 
siderable development in Guatemala, the Guatemalan 
coffee being very highly esteemed in foreign markets, 
and I determined to make a tour of inspection ia 
Guatemala aud examine the principal coffee plant- 
ations, in order to learn what was the be^t way to 
m\ke a plantation and ke?p it productive. I, of 
course, tried, during this time, to collect all the in- 
formation I possibly could abjut these two branches 
of agricultural industry. 
Finally I undertook to mxke a coffee planta'ion 
in the high lands of S^conusco — located from four to 
five thousand feet above the level of the sea — as, in 
my opinion, a temperate zone is the proper one for 
that tree; and another for india-rubber ia the lower 
lands of the district, which are warm, damp and 
marshy. I aoquir.'d some experience by these experi- 
ments and I made a study of the subject, not only 
in coffee plantations in Blexico and Guatemala, but 
ia other countries where I understood coffee raising 
was also very prosperous, like the Island of Ceylon, 
ia the East Indies, and Bi-azil which is now and 
has been for mmy years, the largest producer of 
Coffee in the world. 
Mr. Romero eventually visited every coll'ee dis- 
trict of Mexico, so that he ought to write with 
a lull knowledge of his subject. The first edi- 
tion of his book— a small manual — came out 
25 years ago and it ran afterwards through 
several editions. When the price of colfee began 
to rise rapidly in 1890, great attention be^ian to 
be given to Mexico with its grand advantage 
of proximity to the United States, the greatest 
gptfes cou^iiminjj country i« the worW. Mi'i 
Romero mentions that the maximum price ob- 
taineil was 33 cents in silver; but that the price 
fell rapkl'y in 1897 until 12 cents was reached and 
yet even that proved renrunerative. Still 
we think the Ceylon planter's who recently 
visiteil Mexico did quite right to hold oil' pur- 
chasin;^ colfee property tli'Sre until they saw 
what the course of the market was likely to be. 
The total production of coffee for Mexico in 1898 
is given as follows : — 
lb. 
Cordoba produces .. ., 10,00},003 
Huatusco and Coatepec. .. 10,000,003 
Oaxaca.. ... .. .. 0,000,000 
Tabasco .. .. .. .5,000,000 
Chiapas.. .. .. .. 3,000,000 
Other Districts . . . . . . 215,000,000 
60,000,000 lb. 
Or nearly 536,003 cwt. The only chance of 
maintaining the remunerativeness of the industry 
we should say, must lie, in introducing the Cey- 
lon system of caretul pickings of ripe cherries 
only, pulping, drying, separating, &c., in fact 
that careful "preparation" which gave " plantation 
Ceylon" so high a reputation. 
But the strange fact is that the recent Ceylon 
visitors to Mexico did not pay a little more 
attention to •' Rubber," the coming product and 
one so much in demand at handsome prices. 
Here is what Mr. Romero has to say with a 
quotation from a Report by the British Minister 
India- Riibher. — The lowlands of Mexico, especially 
those a Ijotning the Pacific Ocean which have 
a very warm and moist climite, are very well adipted 
for the india-rubber tree, which attains a large size 
and yreldi a considerable amount of india-rubber. 
We used to have whole forests of them, which fact 
shows that they were in their proper conditions of 
soil and climate, as they could outgrow the rank 
vegetation of the tropics, and prevent the growth of 
most of the other large trees in the forests ; but 
india-rubber gatherers have destroyed most of them, 
and I imagine that there is a comparatively small 
number left. 
I have always thought that the production of india 
rubber would before long cease to be suffijient to 
supply the demand, and that, therefore, the value of 
that article would increase with the lapse of time. 
N jW it is to be expected that the enormous expansion 
during the last few years of the cycle-tire, electrical 
motor-car, cab, and kindred industries will lead to the 
bestowal of increased attention on the world's rubber 
supply, which is so intim.itely associated with the ex- 
istence of these industries. 
Thinking that a plantation of india-rubbjr trees 
would be very remunerative, I devoted considerable 
attention to that subject, and in 1872 started one 
of 100,000 trees in a plaie admirably located for the 
purpose, bordering on the Pacific Ojean and between 
two large rivers, in the sams district of Soconusco. 
In an article published in 1872, under the title 
" Indii-Rubber Culture in Mexico," I compiled all 
the iuformition on thj subject that I could obtain, 
aupplemeiiting it with the experience that I had ac- 
quired. U ifortunately, for reasons of a political 
nature, I had to abandon that plantation, and when 
the trees that I had planted grew large enough to 
yield rubber, they were tapped by the natives and 
entirely destroyed, but my work gave me an experience 
which I considered of great value. 
The india-rubber trees that grow in Mexico are not 
the ^aevel^ (/uianensis that grows in Brazil, but the 
Casfilloa elasticu, and if we have any of the Ilueceil 
rja'aacmis I have not seen them. 
Enough has been written lately on rubber culti- 
vation to show that the profits, in Mexico at least, 
would be very great; indeed, 300 per cent, on the 
capital invested is a possible return, after five year.-", 
from cultivating Castilloa elastica in that Republic. 
