257 



The four posts around the tree carried the low platform on which 

 the tapper stood to reach the top parts of the last herring-bone. 



Curtis clearly described his method in the Agricultural Bulletin 

 of the Straits and F.M.S., i., 1902, p. 51 1, thus : "A small perpendicular 

 channel a foot or more in length, and about one eighth of an inch broad, 

 but not deep enough to obtain much rubber is first made, and at the 

 base of this is affixed the tin or other receptable to receive the latex. 

 The channel is not subsequently enlarged : . . . . leading to this- 

 channel diagonally are made two or three incisions on either side 

 which supply the latex, and from the upper surface of which a thin 

 shaving is removed every morning, or every alternate morning 



thirteen times which, with the initial opening of the cuts 



make fourteen operations." 



In 1897, Mr. L. Wray tapped at Taiping, {Malay Mail of Janu- 

 ary 19, 1898, quoted in Ferguson's All about Rubber, p. ccxxxxiii.) 

 and Mr. R. Derry at Kwala Kangsar, (vide Perak Museum Notes, ii., 

 part 2, p. lOi, as well as the last reference), both using the herring-bone. 

 Later tappings by Mr. Derry at Kwala Kangsar are recorded in the 

 Agricultural Bulletin of the Straits and F.M.S., i., 1901, p. 20. 



Curtis' plate referred to, and the expressed statements of Messrs. 

 Wray and Derry show that the side cuts were opposite, and Mr. 

 Wray remarked that in healing this proved disadvantageous, (Perak 

 Museum Notes, ii, 1897, p. 96, reprinted in Ferguson's All about Rubber, 



1899, p. c), for the covering up of the wound was slow at the points 

 where two side cuts made with the vertical channel an unusually 

 wide wound. He suggested with a diagram that the side cuts should 

 alternate. 



Experimental tapping, commenced in 1900 at Tjikeumeuh in 

 Java, by Dr. Tromp de Haas, was by excising the lower edges of 

 oblique cuts in series by a chisel on nine successive days (vide 

 Agricultural Bulletin of the Straits and F.M.S., iv., 1905, p. 286). 



Tapping in Singapore was done over all the years about this 

 time for various purposes, often for the instruction of a visitor and 

 to demonstrate rubber: these tappings went unrecorded; but one is 

 mentioned in the Annual Report of the Botanic Gardens, for the year 



1900, page 7, wherein an attempt was made on a single tree five feet 

 five inches in girth, to ascertain how long it required to tap it dry,. 

 and its wounds were reopened on eighty-four successive days until 

 this happened. It is a pity that the subsequent history of the tree 

 is unknown. 



It is evident that other trees received a much lighter treat- 

 ment. 



Right from 1889 tapping seems to have been done irregularly ; 

 and the number of trees used for it apparently exceeded 150 by little,, 

 of which number 134 were standing in 1904. 



