RUBBER PLANTING ON THE 
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arranged for an exploring trip with him later, and the time had come to 
part. I tried hard to get him to visit New York with me, but with the 
true tropical dread of pneumonia and grippe, he sturdily refused. With 
a simple handshake we parted, but I wish he could have looked into my 
heart, and read there the gratitude that I felt, and how I appreciated the 
hospitality and consideration that he had shown to the tenderfoot who 
dropped in so suddenly upon him, rode his best horse, stole the affections 
of his parrot, and wore a hole in his favorite canvas chair. 
On my return to the City of Mexico almost the first people that I 
met were Messrs. Warren and William Fish, Mr. Charles E. Sieler, Mr. 
S. D. Dorman, and Dr. W. S. Cockrell, all of whom have interests down 
in the Trinidad River district. I had met these gentlemen before, with 
the exception of the last named, and as he has been interested in rubber 
cultivation for nine years, I was glad to get an expression of opinion 
from him. He is a very earnest advocate of close planting. I believe 
he laid it down as a rule that the distances between the trees should be 
six feet and six inches. He has also gone into the subject of smothering 
the grass by the use of the cow pea, and strongly recommends the whip- 
poorwill variety. He said that his own observations proved that when 
the Castillo a was planted in a soil that consisted of a thin layer of loam 
over gravel, the trees did very well for three or four years, and after 
that seemed not only to stop growing, but that they produced very little 
latex. 
His remarks remind me that in transferring my notes I left out my 
visit to Filisola, a plantation that is not only an acknowledged failure, 
but one that is practically abandoned. As the record of failure is often 
of more value than is the story of any number of successes, I am going to 
add it right here. 
It was hot — awfully hot — as we climbed up the hillside to the 
rubber trees. On the way we walked in single file, constantly thrashing 
our leggings with switches to dislodge the clinging pinoleos. On the 
rolling ground above the landing, we found a stand of trees, said to be 
seven thousand in number, planted about twelve feet apart. Most of 
them were in the sun, but quite a lot were in among banana trees, and 
had good shade. Those in the sun were knee deep in grass, which was 
not of one year's growth, but showed a permanent sod. Those in the 
shade were free from grass. Ail of the trees, however, looked aged, not 
in size, but from the wrinkled condition of the bark, and the gray lichen 
that covered it. Yet those trees were but seven years old. They yielded 
some latex, hut the most optimistic seller of rubber planting stock would 
