The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-02-24
INDIGO PLANTATIONS.
How the Valuable Dye-Stuff
is Obtained.
CULTIVATION OF THE PLANT.
The Process of Fermsntation-Whe
the Seeds are sown-
Other Industries.

GRENADA, Nicaragua, January 81, 1888
Especial Correspondence of TIL
HERALD Among Nicaragua's indus
tries, perhaps the most prominent and
promising is the indigo culture, a thou.
sand seroneS of that valuable dye-stufl
being annually exported; and second in
extent, because involving more labor
and dsnger). but by no means second
airy in Importance, is that of
CAoUTCHoNE, OR INDIA RUBBER.
Nicaraguan yuEsroes, or rubber-hunt-
ers, are much like their class elsewhere,
except that these have a peculiar pro-
cess of reducing the csoutchone to q
marketable commodity, different from
that practiced IN Brazil and other coun-
tries. The term yulero is essentially
Central American-deriyed from ute
the native name of the Treas the
word caoutchone is South American.
India rubber is not, as many suppose.
the exuded gum of a tree, but appears
ID the form of sap, and is gathered
mucL after the manner of maple tree
sap in Yaukeeland.
Having infinitely described its collec-
ton and preparation in a previous
letter (from Costa Rica), we will not
go into particulars now, as the process
is much the same all over Central
America and Southern Mexico. A full
grown rubber tree not previously tapped
will yield at least twenty gallons of sap,
and will run itself perfectly dry in a
days time.
at that season of the year when the
juices begin to rise from the roots to the
branches of the trees, the yuleToeS be-
stir themselves and hire out" to the
merchants, who organize them in par
ties of thirty or forty, and send them
into the woods, equipped for two or
three months stay.
When party of yuleros find place
IN the deep forest where rubber trees
are plenty, they select favorable spot
on the banks of some lake or stream.
las great deal of water is needed in
the business), and proceed to erect
camp out of brush aad palms. This is
their headquarters-their temporary
home in the depths of the wilderness,
practically cutoff from the rest of the
world
They begin by distributing their
buckets at convenient distances. Then
each yulero selects his tree, clears it of
vines and creepers, Rnd-me ehate in
hand, with q coil of rope wound around
his waist-he climbs the lower branches.
Having thrown one end of the rope
over a convenient limb, he lets himself
down by it, cutting diagonal channels
through the bark of the tree in his de-
scent, left and right, the cuts meeting
at right angles. In this, great skill and
expedition are required, for the instant
an incision is maze,
THE MILK" GUsHEs FORTH
in streams; in few moments flowing
at the rate of four gallons an hour.
At the bottom of the lowest cut, not
far from the ground, an iron spike, six
inches long, is driven into the tree.
through which the sap runs into a
bucket placed to receive it.
Having thus tapped a dozen trees,
the yulero has all he can attend to,
emptying the buckets. as they rapidly
I'LL, into ten-gallon casks that are pro-
vided for the purpose. In the evening
these casks are rolled into camp, and
the milk strained through selves into
barrels. In other rubber-producing
parts of the world, it is then boiled;
but not SO in Nicaragua. The natives
the Juice of a vine called achuna,
which nature has provided in abund-
ance, and which acts upon caoutchone
sap as rennet upon cows milk, making
@'curd" of it in few moments. The
yuleros cut the stem OF this singular
vine into short pieces, soak it in water,
and then put small pinches of it into
pans with the crude caoutchone. In
the morning a quantity of dark-brown
liquid, resembling a weak solution of
licorice, is found on the top of each pan,
which is poured off, leaving the rubber
in a solid cake of gum-about tive
pounds of it 10 every gallon of sap.
The gum cakes are then rolled under
heavy weights of wood, into long, fiat
strips, whi n are hung over poles to
dry These strips are facetiously
called tortillas (pan cakes), and at first
are as white as vulcanized rubber, but
In few days become black and hard as
SO many planks. The tortillas are then
piled up under cover till the end of the
season, when they are shipped to mar
ket.
As to the yet more curious vegetable
substance called indigo-with which
the markets of the world are supplied
from India and Central America-slnce
it was spoken OF as a mineral in letters
patent issued in Germany, after 1t had
been in general used more than 600
years.
The indigo plant is half-shrub, half
vine, growing two or three feet high,
the coloring principle being contained,
not in the pale red flowers, but IN the
dull, bluish-green leaves, and is
brought out by Its oxidation as the
leaves are dried, oris developed by sub
hitting green leaves TO
A PROCESS OF FERMENTATION AND oxIDA-
TIeN.
The seeds are soWn in April, in
light soil, well narrowed in; and after
q few showers tbs plants completely |
cover the ground, looking like New
Jersey sweet potato patch more than |
ANYTHING else, except that even the
most hardy weed declines to grow
with indigo. Before the plants have
reached their full height the leaves are
cut, always early in the morning while
the dew is upon them, and are carried
at once to the factory. Here they are
laid in a stone cistern, twenty feet
square and three or four feet deep.
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