60* 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTUKIST. [March 1, 1902. 
CULTIVATION OF RUBBER. 
The following rathor raoy accoant of the diffionlties 
lying in wait for the cultivators of rubbsr trees, is 
•xtraoted from the pages of the American " Agricul- 
tural Gazette." After speaking of the relatively small 
proportion of people engaged iu this direation, the 
writer goes on to say: — 
The difficulties which confront this handful of farm- 
ers are peculiar. In the first place, no one ever tried 
before to make rubber grow as a crop ^ftr the market. 
There are no data, no facts of even the simplest kind 
to tell these men whether their ideas are the i-ight onps. 
The natives of the country take no interest in this 
outside their own particular business, and a man about 
to establish a plantation has had to start fresh, with 
his own ideas to guide him; and these latter cannot 
be said as yet to have become authoritative, for none 
of the farms are more than six years old, and the trees 
must be up that time before the question of growing 
them can be settled. Kubber planting, then, is not 
only an absolutely untried undertaking, but there 
has been nothing of tradition or general knowledge 
of the subject with which to make a start. If rubber 
were a delicate tree, or difficult to cultiTate, the out- 
look would be disheartening indeed. 
Second, the general conditions are against the plan- 
ter. The nature of the country throws him entirely 
npou his owu resources, and the climate is apt to be 
enervating, to say the Itast. Transportation is a great 
problem. Labour is scarce and not easy to handle, 
the native peon of Central America being a mixture 
of childishness and independence, and a hard drinker to 
boot. Although strong and active as young mgn, ex- 
cellent axemen and better with a spade than any other 
labourers in the world, they become debilitated very 
early in life. They have no constitution and must 
be cared for like children. Furthermore, they look to 
the patron, or owner, for the settlement of every ill 
spiritual or temporal. You must keep them sober, 
get them out of debt, make peace between them and 
their wives, arrange any infecilities that may occur 
between them and their neighbours' wives, doctor the 
whole family and educate the children, if you have 
time. For the peon is essentially a creature formed 
for the patriarchal system. With a chief or employer 
whom they know or respect, the better class of peons 
become in many essentials ideal labourers — steady, 
careful, hard-working, quick to catch an idea, faithful 
to follow it out, entirely honest ; their employer's in- 
terests become their own. But iu order to obtain this 
desirable state of things a farmer should be a first- 
rate judge of capacity and character, a fair lawyer, 
physician and man of business- 
A third problem before the farmer of rubber is where 
to plant. Castilloa elastica, for practical purposes the 
only rubber in Central America has an extremely varied 
habitat. It is found at all elevations up to 2,000 
feet and in a great variety of soils and locations, 
with a consequent variation of rainfall. So here, 
again, the farmer must make a choice, and one upon 
which his success will probably depend, with nothing 
to guide him in the making. As regards location, it 
is conceded Jthat Castilloa needs a tropical climate, 
a rainfall that can be depended upon, a good drain- 
age, and an elevation of less than 1,500 feet, but 
these conditioua have gicat latitude of choice. 
The most important of the quesiious relative to the 
method of planting rubber is the one about which 
the farmera are most divided, aud is probably the 
moat vital conneoted with its cultivation. It is the 
^^uestion whether to plant in groves in the open or 
under forest shade. The advocate of the farmer sys- 
tem says that in any other part of the world, if one 
wants to get a particular crop, it is customary to give 
the tree or plant all the chance possible. One clears 
the ground, turns it up, and after the tree is planted 
keeps all uckI i from encroaching upon its light and 
food Hpa( ' Wiiy not apply these elementary princi- 
ples to XI I.I' 1 :tnd plant in ploughed and open land, 
The advocate of the forestry Bystem points, how- 
ever, to the manner in which the tree grows natu-ally. 
and says that rubber is found thriving best under 
shade in a cool, wet spot, and by '-thriving" he 
says, he means gives the most rnbber. The tree will 
grow It IS quite t.-ue, faeter iu the open than 
in the forest and you will get vour groves 
ct rubber trees more quickly, bat the question is, will 
you get the milk from them For it does seem to 
be a tact that rubber found in open pr.stures will 
not yield so much milk as those trees growing iu the 
forest where it is cooler and moister. If it could be 
ascertained exactly what function the inilk of the tree 
performed, one would probably be able to tell how 
much rain would produce thu tree with the largest 
quantity of lubber. The miik is not a sap. bat a latex, 
which 13 earned jnst under the cuter birk, and the 
slightest nick from a ptn knile will be followed bv a 
thick liquid, which if caught ou the finger dries at once, 
leaving a shred or two of pure rubber, like small elastic 
bands. 
There are farms established bv exponeuls of etch 
theory. One can see in Mexico rows of young trees 
in open cleared land, in everv respect like a coflee or 
orange plantation ; and again in Costa Rica the farm 
consists of rubber trees planted in among the forest 
trees, only cleared where the growth is very thick, 
though, of course, the Lush is kept down by cntling 
twice a year. Those who are following these two 
theories will be relieved when they get their first 
crop. Rut at present they are having rather an an- 
xious time of It, for on the one hand it will be ex- 
pensive business, not to say impossible, to plant 
shade among those trees in the open, and the rubber 
may be ruined before the shade comes up ; but this 
course would be imperative should the advocates of 
the orchard theory find themselves in the wrong. On 
the other hand, should the forestry people be 
at fault, it will require considerable skill for 
the owner of the rubbtr gi owing in the forest to 
out the trees and let in the sau without injuring 
the rubber. Eingiog trees at the right phases of the 
moon, some eminent scientists to the contrary not- 
withstanding, will go in- toward solving the problem 
for the grower of rubber in the forest and make hia 
position the stronger of the two on the whole, in that 
he runs the lesser risk, as it is easier to cut out the 
shade than to put it back.— r/,e India Bubber and 
GuUa-Perclia Trades' Journal, Jan. 6. 
RUBBER AND COFFEE PLANTING IN 
COSTA RICA. 
We have a letter from Mr. Edwin A. Coles, 
son of the late Kev. S. Coles, who is a planter 
in Costa Rica, referring to the death of bis 
lamented father, and his desire to aid the 
Sinhalese children who wish to place a memo- 
rial stone over the grave of their deceased 
friend. Mr. Coles makes the following refer- 
ence to planting : — 
" 1 hope shortly to write you an arbicle on the 
question of Rubber Planting in Costa Rica. It is as 
is stated in the T, A,, in its infancy everywhere, 
and experience is lackinf;. I have now been taking 
stock of other people's experiences and am begin- 
ning to form an idea. There is no mistake that 
Costa Rica is a splendid lield tor the industry, 
which though requiring very small capital to begin 
with, needs, nevertheless, notiiing less than persoBal 
attention. I have just received from Messr.s. 
Brown & Co. five packages of the " White Ant 
Compound " delayed soinewiieie in transinission. 
To state briefly we are now haviag terrible hard 
times in this our 'collee ' country, more especially 
among the buyers. Competition ran high last season 
and to make things worse, coffee dropped in the 
roaiket, resulting iu the bankruptcy of about 9n%' 
