208 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[January 1, 1913. 



Getting Balata by Destroying the Trees. 



IX a recent issue of The India Rubber World our British 

 Guiana correspondent stated that a proposal recently venti- 

 lated, that instead of balata trees being partially bled and kept 

 alive for future bleedings, they should be cut down entirely and 

 every ounce of 

 balata extracted, 

 occasioned much 

 surprise in the 

 colony. He went 

 on to say that on 

 calmer consider- 

 ation, however, 

 many people 

 were beginning 

 to think that 

 there was a good 

 deal in the sug- 

 gestion and he 

 quotes a promi- 

 nent member of 

 the British 

 Guiana Balata 

 Association a s 

 follows : 



"It is under- 

 stood that the 

 balata tree on 

 being cut down 

 yields 30 lbs. to 

 40 lbs. of milk, 

 whereas under 

 the present sys- 

 tem the quantity 

 obtained by a 



good bleeder is 



only some 5 lbs. 



B y periodical 



bleeding, there- 

 fore, it would 



take 30 years to 



get a result ob- 

 tainable immed- 

 iately by cutting 



down the tree, 



and I venture to 



say that there is 



hardly anyone in 



the colony who 



will contradict 



the statement 



that at the end of 



30 years the trees 



will be dead. The 



cost of periodi- 

 cal bleedings 



must necessarily 



be very much 



greater than the 



cost of cutting 



down trees, and, 



the question comes to be whether is it better to bleed entirely a 



tree at once or allow it to remain till it dies within a period of 



30 years?" 



As a matter of fact, this proposal is not of recent origin. The 



process of extracting the latex from the balata tree by the de- 

 struction of tlie tree and the removal of all the bark was given 

 a thorough test some IS years ago and the results, according to 

 those wlio made the experiment, were very highly satisfactory. 



Three Americans 

 u ent into this 

 enterprise i n 

 Venezuela i n 

 1896. They put 

 up a plant at a 

 cost of about 

 $25,000, with an 

 average produc- 

 tion of over 500 

 pounds of gum 

 per day. They 

 reported that the 

 average balata 

 tree in Venezu- 

 ela furnished 1230 

 pounds of bark, 

 that it required 

 39 trees to pro- 

 duce one ton of 

 gum, the average 

 extraction being 

 about 66 pounds 

 of gum for each 

 tree. This, how- 

 ever, was from 

 trees which had 

 been previously 

 tapped and from 

 which 10 to 16 

 pounds of gum 

 had already been 

 taken, their esti- 

 mate being that 

 from trees that 

 never had been 

 tapped, from 80 

 to 120 pounds of 

 gum could be se- 

 cured, while by 

 tlie tapping 

 metliod not more 

 than 8 to 16 

 pounds of gum 

 could be secured. 

 ( It is quite likely 

 t!uit these figures 

 are more than 

 tinged with a 

 promoter's n a t- 

 ura! optimism.) 



They claimed a 

 number of dis- 

 tinct advantages 

 for this process. 

 The first was the 



Tapping B.\lata, British Gi'iana. 



large amount of gum that could be secured at one time, as com- 

 pared with periodical bleeding. .Another advantage was the fact 

 that the work could go on regardless of the season, which would 

 not be true under the ordinary process of bleeding. The third 



