A Journey in Southeastern Mexico

by Henry Howard Harper

As to rubber, we found very few trees in bearing, and the few scattering ones we saw that had been "tapped," or rather "gashed," in order to bleed them of their milk, were slowly dying. True, the native method of extracting the milk from the trees was crude, but they did not appear hardy.

One of the principal articles of export from this section is chicle. The reader may not be aware that a great deal of our chewing-gum comes from this part of Mexico, and that it is a thoroughly pure and wholesome vegetable product. The native Chiclero is the best paid man among the common laborers in Mexico. Tying one end of a long rope around his waist he climbs up the tree to the first large limb—perhaps from thirty to sixty feet—and throwing the other end of the rope over the branch lets himself down slowly by slipping the rope through his left hand, while with the right hand he wields a short bladed machete with which he chops gashes in the tree at an angle of about forty-five degrees, which leading into a little groove that he makes all the way down, conducts the sap down to the base of the tree, where it is carried into a basin or trough by means of a leaf inserted in a gash in the tree near the ground. This is a very hazardous undertaking and requires for its performance a dexterous, able-bodied man. A single misstroke may sever the rope and precipitate the operator to the ground. In this way a great number of men are killed every year. The sap is a thick, white creamy substance, and is boiled down in vats the same as the sap from the maple tree. When it reaches a certain thickness or temperature it is allowed to cool, after which it is made up into chunks or squares weighing from ten to forty pounds each. It is then carried to market on mule-back. The crude chicle has a delightful flavor, which is entirely destroyed by the gum-manufacturers, who mix in artificial flavors, with a liberal percentage of sugar. If the gum-chewer could obtain crude chicle with its delicious native flavor he (or she) would never be content to chew the article as prepared for the trade.

Rubber is produced in the same way as chicle, and the milk from the rubber tree is scarcely distinguishable, except in flavor, from that of the chicle-producing tree. The latter, however, grows to much greater size and is more hardy. It abounds throughout the forests in the lowlands. The native rubber trees die after being gashed a few times, and those we saw in bearing were very scattering. You might not see a dozen in a day's travel.

The easiest way to make money on rubber trees is to write up a good elastic article on the possibilities of the industry, form a ten or twenty million dollar corporation and sell the stock to the uninitiated,—if there are any such left. It would be a debatable question with me, however, which would be the more attractive from an investment point of view,—stock in a rubber company in Mexico, or one in Mars. Both would have their advantages; the one in Mexico would possess the advantage of closer proximity, while the one in Mars would have the advantage of being so far away that one could never go there to be disillusioned. The chances for legitimate returns would be about the same in both places. It seems a pity that any of those persons who ever bought stock in bogus Mexican development companies should have suffered the additional humiliation of afterwards going down there to see what they had bought into.

It is surprising that up to the present time no one has appeared before the credulous investing public with a fifty-million dollar chicle corporation, for here is a valuable commodity that grows wild in the woods almost everywhere, and a highly imaginative writer could devote a whole volume to the unbounded possibilities of making vast fortunes in this industry.

While I was in Mexico a friend sent me some advertising matter of one of these development companies that was paying large dividends on its enormous capital stock from the profits on pineapples and coffee, when in point of fact there was not a coffee-tree on its place, and it was producing scarcely enough pineapples to supply the caretaker's family.

In regard to coffee, we found that some American emigration company appeared to be making a legitimate effort to test the productivity of that staple, and had sent a number of thrifty American families into Mexico and settled them at the mesa,[8] several miles inland from Tuxpam. They had cleared up a great deal of land and put out several thousand coffee-plants. There are many reasons why this crop cannot be extensively and profitably raised in this part of Mexico,—and for that matter, I presume, in any other part. Foremost among the many obstacles is the labor problem. The native help is not only insufficient, but is utterly unreliable. It is at picking-time that the greatest amount of help is required, and even if it were possible to rely upon the laborers, and there were enough of them, there would not be sufficient work to keep them between the harvest-seasons. It would be totally impracticable to import laborers; the expense and the climate would both be prohibitive. Again, the price of labor here has increased greatly of late years, without a corresponding appreciation in the price of coffee.[9]

Neither vanilla, coffee nor rubber had ever been profitably raised in large quantities and we therefore decided that under the existing circumstances and hindrances we would dismiss these three articles from further consideration.

If we had been content to return home and charge our trip to experience account, all would have been well,—but we pursued our investigations along other lines. The possibilities of the tobacco industry claimed our attention for awhile—it also claimed a considerable amount of money from one of my companions. Someone (perhaps the one who had the land for sale) had recently discovered that the ground in a certain locality was peculiarly suited to the growth of fine tobacco, which could be raised at low cost and sold at fabulous prices. We learned that a large tract of land in this singularly-favored district was for sale; so thither we went in search of information. The soil was rich and heavily wooded; it looked as though it might produce tobacco or almost anything else. I neither knew nor cared anything about tobacco-raising and the place did not therefore interest me in the least. One of my companions, however, had been doing a little figuring on his own account, and had calculated that he could buy this place, hire a foreman to run it, put in from five to eight hundred acres of tobacco that year, and that the place would pay for itself and be self-sustaining the second year. By the third year he would have a thousand acres in tobacco, and the profits would be enormous. It would not require his personal attention, and he could send monthly remittances from home for expenses, and probably come down once a year on a pleasure trip. Parenthetically, by way of assurance to the reader that the man had not entirely lost his reason, I may say that we learned in Tuxpam that of all routes and modes of travel to that place we had selected by far the worst; that the best way was to take a Ward Line Steamer from New York to Havana, and from there around by Progreso, Campeche, and up the coast to Vera Cruz, thence to Tuxpam. From Tuxpam the steamers go to Tampico, then back to Havana and New York. However, one cannot count with certainty on landing at Tuxpam, as the steamers are obliged to stop outside the bar and the passengers and cargo have to be lightered over. The steamers often encounter bad weather along the coast, and it frequently happens that passengers and freight destined for Tuxpam are carried on up to Tampico.

My friend had gotten his money easily and was now unconsciously planning a scheme for spending it with equal facility. The more we tried to dissuade him the more convinced he was of the feasibility of the plan. We argued that no one had ever made any money in tobacco there, and that it was an untried industry. He said that made no difference; it was because they didn't know how to raise tobacco. He would import a practical tobacco-man from Cuba—which he finally did, under a guarantee of $200 a month for a year—and that he would show the Mexicans how to raise tobacco. He bought the place, arranged through a friend in Cuba for an expert tobacco-raiser, and sent couriers through the country to engage a thousand men for chopping and clearing. He was cautioned against attempting to clear too much land, as it was very late. The rainy season begins in June, and after that it is impossible to burn the clearings over. The method of clearing land here is to cut down the trees and brush early in the spring, trim off the branches and let them lie until thoroughly dry. In felling a forest and chopping up the brush and limbs it forms a layer over the entire area, sometimes five or six feet deep. Under the hot sun of April and May, during which time it rarely rains more than a slight sprinkle, this becomes very dry and highly inflammable. Early in June the fires are set, and at this season the whole country around is filled with a hazy atmosphere. The heat from the bed of burning tinder is so intense that most of the logs are consumed and many of the stumps are killed; thus preventing them from sprouting. Every foul seed in the ground is destroyed and for a couple of years scarcely any cultivation is required.