It begins to bear the third year, produces three to four hundred pounds per acre in the fifth year, attains its maximum in the tenth, and is old in the thirtieth. Coffee exhausts the soil more than any crop except tobacco.

Cacao. All through the forests of the Atlantic coast cacao grows wild, and even in this condition generally of choice quality. On the Pacific coast are the chief plantations, although the amount exported is insignificant (1,492 lbs. in 1884). Just over the Mexican boundary, in the province of Soconusco, grows the most celebrated cacao known; and probably careful selection of seed and cultivation would produce the same results in Guatemalan territory. Throughout the republic there is probably less cacao raised than before the Conquest, when the nib was current as money, and chocolate a royal drink. Like the coffee-tree, cacao requires protection,' which must be continuous, for the cacao never outgrows it; but a thin shade such as the India-rubber affords will answer very well, and in this case the madre cacao is profitable. A cacao-plantation should be in full bearing about the seventh year; and while the curing of the pods requires much care and experience, the cultivation of the trees is very simple. The many varieties and the interesting process by which the bean is prepared for market are well described in the pamphlet to which reference has been made. Plantations in the valleys of the Polochic, Chocon, and Motagua would yield a rich return. In Guatemala are several factories for preparing chocolate from the bean, and I have seen samples of very high quality. It is generally, if not

1 Cacao: How to grow and how to cure it. London: Prepared by the Jamaica Government.

always, flavored with cinnamon, and when used as a beverage is churned or beaten into froth.

India-rubber. Like the cacao, the Castilloa elastica

grows wild in all the coast valleys; but although the Government has placed a bounty on plantations of this very

desirable tree, few have been formed. Now, as formerly, the Indios collect the gum in a very wasteful way, and soon the supply will be greatly lessened. I am tempted to quote from Juarros1 what I believe is the earliest notice

Castilloa elastica (India-rubber Tree).

"On

of the use of India-rubber for waterproof garments. pricking the trunk of this tree [ule] an abundant juice issues, which serves, as Fuentes assures us, to coat a boot, with which one can pass a stream or a swamp dryshod."

1 Compendio de la Historia de la Ciudad de Guatemala, t. 2, p. 95, ed.

1818.

The castilloa grows to a height of about forty to fifty feet, and its clean, smooth stem may be two feet in diameter at the base. The leaves are large, oblong in shape, and rather hairy. The foliage is light green in color, and not very dense. The small greenish flowers appear in February and March, and the seed ripens three months later. Mr. Morris gives the following account of the rubber gathering:

"The castilloa rubber-tree is fit to be tapped for caoutchouc, or the gummy substance produced by its milk, when about seven to ten years old. The milk is obtained at present, from trees growing wild, by men called rubbergatherers, who are well acquainted with all the localities inhabited by the Toonu [ule]. The proper season for tapping the trees is after the autumn rains, which occur some months after the trees have ripened their fruit, and before they put forth buds for the next season. The flow of milk is most copious during the months of October, November, December, and January. The rubber-gatherers commence operations on an untapped tree by reaching with a ladder, or by means of lianes, the upper portions of its trunk, and scoring the bark the whole length with deep cuts, which extend all round. The cuts are sometimes made so as to form a series of spirals all round the tree; at other times they are shaped simply like the letter V, with a small piece of hoop-iron, the blade of a cutlass, or the leaf of a palm placed at the lower angle to form a spout to lead the milk into a receptacle below. A number of trees are treated in this manner, and left to bleed for several hours. At the close of the day the rubber-gatherer collects all the milk, washes it by means of water,

1 The Colony of British Honduras. D. Morris, London, 1883, p. 76.

and leaves it standing till the next morning. He now procures a quantity of the stem of the moon-plant (Calonyction speciosum), pounds it into a mass, and throws it into a bucket of water. After this decoction has been strained, it is added to the rubber milk in the proportion of one pint to a gallon, or until, after brisk stirring, the whole of the milk is coagulated. The masses of rubber floating on the surface are now strained from the liquid, kneaded into cakes, and placed under heavy weights to get rid of all watery particles." It is true that either very heavy weights are not handy, or the honest Indian wishes to sell water at the price of rubber; for the masses, as I have examined them freshly brought in for sale, contain a large quantity of water held mechanically in the interstices. Alum is sometimes used to coagulate the milk, but is thought to render the gum hard and less elastic. A fullgrown tree should yield about eight gallons of milk when first tapped, which is equivalent to sixteen pounds of rubber, worth from ten to twelve dollars. Although the law of Guatemala forbids the tapping of young trees, and tries to regulate the frequency of the attack, it is ineffectual to prevent the gradual destruction of the wild trees. through improvident bleeding, and only the establishment of private plantations will prevent the final extinction of this most valuable source of rubber. The Para rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) grows only in swamps unfit for cultivation; the true rubber (Ficus elastica), so popular a houseplant, does not seem to thrive and yield a supply of rubber away from its native East Indies; and the Ceara rubber of South America (Manihot Glaziovi) is not of easy cultivation, so that the Castilloa certainly promises to be the tree, of the many known to produce rubber, most likely