AGRICULTURAL* BULLETIN ^ : 
OF THE 
STRAITS 
AND 
FEDERATED MALAY STATES. 
~w 
No. 1.] 
JANUARY, 1907. 
[Vol. VI. 
RUBBER PLANTING IN MEXICO AND 
CENTRAL AMERICA 
By PEHR OLSSON— SEFFER, Ph.D. 
Introductory. 
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 Castilla 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 Castilla 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 
ready to entertain. 
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 , 
% 
JO* 
