Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1893 — Rubber Trees in Nicaragua. [ARTICLE]

Rubber Trees in Nicaragua.

Lieut. W. N. King, Jr., in Harper's Weekly. A forest of rubber trees may be detected without the eye of an expert, for they are scarred and dying from the wounds of the machete. The rubber hunter reminds me of the nan who ‘ ‘killed the goose that laid the golden egg.” Each tree will yield mly a certain amount of the precious juice per year and retain its vitality. When one of these improvident fel- . ows makes a discovery, however, mlv a few months suffice to place Pis bonanza in the ranks of the many that have gone before. In consequence you may traverse these forests from end to end without seeing i virgin tree. The ordinary specimen of Nicaragua is from fifty to >ne hundred feet high and about two 'eet in diameter. The bark is white ind the leaves oval, with a slight indination downwards. The cuts are made about two feet apart and generally extend from the ground to the branch, channels being scored in the sides to lead the juice into a bag. The average yield of a tree is from ive to seven gallons of a milky fluid. This is mixed with the juice of the ‘wisth,” which hastens congelation. After this operation the crude rubber is baled up and shipped north So be refined and further prepared for commerce. Another tree very similar to the rubber, and often :aken for it, is the cow tree. This fields a liquid very much like milk n taste and appearance, and more dian once was drunk in coffee by the jngineers.