68 CENTRAL AMERICAN RUBBER TREE. 



MULTIPLE TAPPING. 



By far the most important recent discovery in connection with the 

 culture of Para rubber in the East Indies is what may be called mul- 

 tiple tapping, or the repeated cutting of the edges of the wound to 

 induce a renewed iiow of milk. This is, it is true, by no means a new 

 idea, since it seems to have been the regular practice of the rubber 

 gatherers of Brazil; but their idea that the tree gave more milk after 

 it had become accustomed to the operation seemed so childishly fanci- 

 ful to Europeans that it has only recently been put to a practical test, 

 and now there is much surprise to find that it is very decidedly correct. 

 Perhaps the most striking instance is that described very recently from 

 Selangor, where a single Para rubber tree 25 years old yielded 18 

 pounds of rubber in a period of two months/' A single ounce was 

 obtained the first day, and 1^ pounds in the next five days. For 10 

 days the daily average was more than half a pound, and on the twelfth 

 day a maximum of 12 ounces Was obtained. A second tree yielded a 

 total of 12 pounds 10 ounces of rubber. It was estimated that about 

 seventy hours of labor was required to collect about 30 pounds of rubber 

 from the two trees, or. over two hours for each pound of rubber, which 

 may be noted as an indication that the collection of rubber by this 

 method will be expensive in proportion as it is carefully done, since it 

 will require intelligent and somewhat skillful cutting to avoid too 

 serious injury to the trees. 



PROTECTION AGAINST THIEVES. 



A serious obstacle to profitable rubber culture in some parts of 

 Central America is the stealing of the milk by the natives, and 

 especially by those who have been accustomed to make a living from 

 the tapping of the wild trees. Trouble from this source is likely to 

 be much worse in countries where rubber is a natural product than in 

 regions where the natives have not been accustomed to gather and sell 

 it, and where no recognized trade exists to make easy the marketing 

 of the contraband product. According to Dr. Carl Sapper, 6 long a 

 resident of Central America and widely acquainted with social and 

 agricultural conditions, man} 7 landowners have given up rubber culture 

 because they find themselves unable to guard their trees from thieves 

 who do not even wait to rob them of their crop, but destroy the 

 young trees as soon as the} 7 begin to produce. A similar report is 

 current from the banana-growing districts of the eastern seaboard of 

 Central America, where experiments in rubber culture are said to 

 have been given up not because the trees failed to grow but because 



« Agricultural Bulk-tin of the Straits and Federated Malay States, 1:556, November, 

 11)02. 



&Der Tropenpflauzer, 3:585, 1899. 



