RUBBER AND COFFEE

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 5372, 3 September 1904, Page 13

RUBBER AND COFFEE

PRODUCTS OF TROPICAL LANDS. CANNOT BE GROWN TOGETHER. Rubber, a commonplace of recent years only, is growing in daily use faster than almost any other product of the tropics. Literally, “there are millions in it,” and it offers great opportunities for trapping the dollar’s of the unwary. Tire opportunity has not been lost, and the United States Government has just issued n warning calling attention to tho fact that many designing pirrates of finance are seeking public subscriptions to the enormously overcapitalised rubber culture companies and plantation companies, whose scene of activity generally is in Mexico. Not that there arc not-genuine enterprises of merit, but there are hordes of catch-; penny concerns, and it is against these that the government sends out its warniito-. Many of the advertisements offer fortunes in both rubber and coffee, to be grown on the same plantation. Many investors in rubber and coffee plantation companies, not knowing tho facts concerning the growth of these plants, believe that they can be cultivated commercially upon the same plantations in Mexico. This is a great error. Rubber is indigenous, to the hottest, most humid portion of tno torrid zone, while coffee is in fact of the temperate zone free from frost. Senor Matias Romero, formerly Secretary of tho Treasury of Mexico, one of the great' coffee and rubber growers of that country, speaking of^ the India rubber plant, publicly stated: — “Tho best climate is the hottest, and the best land the dampest and nearest to the seashore or to the low banks of rivers. Wherever rubber trees ai’e found these conditions are present. A traveller notes the great number of rubber trees increasing notably as one nears the sea and diminishing ’as one gees from-the shore toward the Cordilleras. Even at the base of these mountains some rubber trees are found at an elevation of 2.500 feet, but they aro As coffee grows to its perfection at an altitude ranging from 2000 to 5000 feet above the sea. it is readily understood why it is impossible to grow coffee and rubber upon tho same plantation. At an elevation from sea level to 500 feet a coffee tree will produce one-half pound of berries; from 1000 to 2000 feet, two pounds; from 2000 to 3000 feet, three pounds; 3000 to 4000 feet, four pounds. FINE MEXICAN COFFEE. Many coffee experts if asked what country produced the finest coffee would tell that Yam an Mocha, of Arabia was the finest, yet at the Paris Exposition, in competition with the world, Mexico carried off the gold medal with a coffee that sells at the plantations .where it is grown for one dollar a pound. Americans believe that all the good things of the world are first taken there, and that that country, being the greatest importer of coffees in the world, would naturally get the host. Americans import more coffee than nearly all Europe, yet it is the common article. London. Havre and Hamburg, especially London, take the finest coffees of Mexico. - _ Many Americans are investing their money in Mexican plantations. It is a fact that fortunes have been lost, with but few exceptions. Coffee alone is a losing investment unless certain conditions are observed in the- selection of

the land and the climatic conditions conducive to the growth of the plant are properly observed. A person going into Mexico with the intention of growing coffee and rubber together would ho throwing away hit money. They cannot grow in the same place. If coffee were grown near the low coast rubber lands the grower, alter four or five years of discouragemen ts and fever, would secure the poorest product grown. These coffees arc absolutely the rankest in quality, as the least in quantity, of all Mexican coffees. A person locating a plantation should inform himself as to the nature of the land —if volcanic lava so much the better—the top soil, whether vegetable or nob; the exposure of the orchard to the sun. Tlie morning rays of the bright tropical sun will kill the trees, so the plantation must be protected cither by mountains or high hills or by other trees, tho configuration of the land to protect the trees from tho hot, fierce north winds that parch the life from the tender ones and so loosen the roots that they finally die. In high altitudes the shade is obtained by clouds that hover over the valleys. The fine Colimas are raised on tho summit of tho Clantanarillos, the Cordobas to the oast of tho Orizahas. In the lava lands south of Mount Orizaba grow the Oaxacas, and to tho south and east the Telman tepees. Along the coast and_ near tho rubber lands grow the poorest of all Mexicans, called Tobascos, and like all coast coffees they are hitter and astringent and very undesirable. In Oaxaca, where a white man can live with some degree of comfort, there is lose trouble with labour than in the low lands. In the rubber districts in the malarial sections of the coast country the humid atmosphere brings death to tho.whites and laziness to the Indians. A mail with limited capital may live in the coffee districts, but the same energy expended on a farm in a temperate land will bring much more comfort and happiness.