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[56] gives the following account of the rubber gathering:—
“The castilloa rubber-tree is fit to be tapped for caoutchoue, 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 rubber-gatherers, 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, 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 full-grown 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 house-plant, 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 to supply in cultivation that useful gum civilized nations cannot now do without, although the science of adulteration has progressed so far that an ordinary pair of so-called rubber boots contain hardly a spoonful of the pure gum, the rest being sulphur, coal-tar, and other matters.
The trees should be planted forty feet apart; and as the seed is very perishable, it should be planted, or at least packed in earth, as soon as gathered.
Sarsaparilla.—One of the most troublesome vejucos, or vines, common all through the forests of the Atlantic seaboard is the zarza, or sarsaparilla. Probably the American public is familiar with the popular remedies compounded in part with this valuable medicinal plant, which, belonging to the Smilax family, affects damp, warm forests, climbing to great heights over the trees. The portion used is the long, tough root; this the zarza-gatherer digs and pulls from the loose soil, replanting the stem, which in due time replaces its stolen roots, to be again robbed. The roots are washed, loosely bundled, and sold to the dealers, who have the fibres made up into tight rolls, a few hundred of which are then pressed together and sewed up in the thickest hide that can be found; for the “custom of trade” includes the wrapper in the tare of the more costly drug. Most of the sarsaparilla exported from Belize comes from Guatemala and Honduras; but from Livingston more than 60,000 pounds were exported in 1884, of an appraised value of ten cents per pound. The plant is easily propagated by cuttings or seeds, and of course needs no cultivation or clearing; the yield will average twenty pounds of dried root from each plant.
Bananas and Plantains.—No export from Guatemala has increased more rapidly in value than have the products under this head. The permanent establishment of lines of steamers between New Orleans and Livingston, and the bounty offered by the Government, stimulated the planting of many small fincas along the shores and on the river-banks. Under contract with the steamship companies, the producer sells his bananas at 50 cents a bunch (of not less than eight hands) during five months of the year, and for 37½ cents the rest of the year. The cost of production may be placed at 12½ cents per bunch. All these prices are in silver currency of the value of the sham dollar of the United States. Plantains are sold at 25 cents a bunch of twenty-five, sometimes commanding $1.25 per hundred. The profits of this business go, as usual, not to the producer, but to the middle-man or the steamer-companies. For example, a man raises a hundred bunches of good fruit; the cost to him is $12.50 delivered on board the steamer. He is paid in the best season $50 in silver, for which he can get $40 in American gold. The steamer people, after a voyage of four days, during which all their expenses are paid by the passenger-list and the Government mail-subsidies, sell the bananas on the wharf in New Orleans for $125 in gold, or its equivalent,—clearing $85; while the planter, for a year’s labor put into the bananas, gets $30. I have put the price paid the planter at the highest, and the sales in New Orleans at the lowest. The loss is insignificant at these figures, and it is not uncommon for the profits of a single round trip of two weeks to exceed $40,000. Half this shared with the planter would make him rich.
If the planting of bananas is to profit the grower, he must raise enough—say twenty thousand bunches a month—to freight his own steamer, and be independent of the present monopolies of the Italian fruiterers. The extent of this business is seen in the fact that from Livingston in 1883 were exported 29,699 bunches, and in 1884, 54,633, or nearly double the amount.
