n6 
RUBBER PLANTING ON THE 
tion, but from a plant lover s interest alone, which they seemed to 
appreciate by growing luxuriantly. 
Then, too, I must not forget the collection of orchids that hung 
from the bamboo lattice outside of the house, and clung to the trees 
on all sides ; nor the orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, banana, and plan- 
tain trees, a notable part of the garden equipment. I looked with 
interest also on the vanilla vines, the cacao plantation, and the twenty- 
five varieties of pineapples, but my chief thought was rubber, and so 
I soon found, was his. I do not wish to make my planter friend blush, 
but when I found the work he was doing, how widely he was consulted 
by planters both in Mexico and in distant tropical lands, I was more 
than ever impressed with mv wonderful luck in thus ‘‘striking oil” when 
first I began to bore. So I asked questions, and questions, and questions, 
and took notes most copiously all the time. 
One of the first points that I wanted settled was, whether here or 
elsewhere, there were Castilloa trees, either wild or cultivated, that did 
not yield latex. So we both started out to find one such tree, by cutting 
the outer bark — indeed, during all of the trip, I cut trees by the hundred 
just to prove this point — but found none except in one instance. I was 
much interested also to note the dififerenecs in the latex as it issued forth. 
In some instances the tree would send out a perfect shower of milk- 
white drops, which coagulated rather slowly, while another near by 
would exude a thicker fluid that began to coagulate almost immediately. 
The natives claim that this latter tree is simply so rich in rubber that 
it retards the flow, and that after a little tapping, it corrects itself and 
the latex becomes more fluid. 
The younger trees gave out abundant latex, but those that were 
less than four years old gave a milk that seemed immature ; that is, it 
did not coagulate into dry, hard rubber but remained quite sticky. I 
noted also a curious thing in connection with this, which was that in 
the younger trees the latex began to mature first near the base of the 
tree, while up towards the branches it still remained of the sticky sort. 
But we found no trees in this district that did not yield latex abundantly. 
At La Buena Ventura I was able to institute some exceedingly 
interesting comparisons between the growth of the rubber tree under 
favorable and unfavorable conditions. In both cases the trees were 
Castilioas, planted from selected seed. In the first instance they were 
planted in the open, about nine feet apart, on rolling land which had 
good drainage. Measuring the circumference of the trunks a foot above 
the ground. I got a fair average of 23.3 inches, and an estimat ed average 
