252 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[January 1, 1920. 



work of the collectors — and with many beneficial results. 



The gathering of balata is done by black or colored laborers 

 and these have to be registered before they can be employed. 

 They usually obtain advances of money at the time of registra- 

 tion for the purpose of purchasing their bush outfit, implements, 

 etc. On the site a suitable tract is selected for a camp, and 

 rough leaf-covered huts are put up. The debree — a shallow 

 tray in which the balata milk coagulates— is then built and 

 everything is in preparation for the collection of the latex. The 

 balata bleeder now proceeds to locate the exact position of the 

 trees nearest at hand, and makes his plans for collecting. The 

 trees are tested with a small cut in order to ascertain in what 

 condition they are for operating upon, and from these initial 

 cuts an experienced bleeder can readily ascertain which trees 

 will most quickly repay tapping. 



During the present year the 

 price of balata made marked 

 variations. At the beginning of 

 the year it was up to four 

 florins' the kilogram," but in 

 August it was down to nearly 

 half that figure in the local 

 market. Meanwhile the rival 

 balata from private lands is .r.- 

 bringing about two florins :' 

 kilogram in the city market, i; 

 a crop of nearly 50,000 kil.. 

 predicted. 



In spite of this competn, 

 which has for the last i r 

 years dictated prices in the I i 1 

 markets, the balata from con- 

 cessions maintains its favored 

 position on account of its purity 

 and excellence. 



The most spectacular feat 

 in the prices of balata is thai i 

 the years 1909-12, during which 

 the article brought unheard of 

 prices. These were the days 

 when the balata merchant — not 

 the collector — found his hands 

 full of money. He could sell 

 balata and make a profit at an 

 average price of one florin' and 



fifty cents the kilo, while the world's market ofifered about seven 

 guilders^ and fifty cents for each kilogram. This golden shower, 

 following upon other periods of high prices in the early 'nine- 

 ties and remoter times acted on the balata merchant in a manner 

 that convinced him firmly that good times were the normal 

 thing ; that if periods of bad luck came they would pass in the 

 future as they had passed in other years, and that, in fact, 

 "something always comes along to help the Surinamer" in spite 

 of crude methods of collection, unsystematized economic meth- 

 ods, enormous export duties and all the other diflSculties against 

 which Dutch Guiana balata has to struggle. Although the colony 

 of Dutch Guiana has produced large quantities of balata since 

 the inception of the industry, there are yet unheard of quanti- 

 ties awaiting exploitation with the advent of capital, which will 

 certainly come along sometime in the near future. 



It may be interesting to describe the life of the average balata 

 bleeder. He gets up in the morning — that is rolls out of his ham- 

 mock — at four o'clock, and lantern in hand, for it is dark until 

 six, sets out with his cutlas (machete) for gashing the trees, 

 or for clearing the paths on his round of tapping. He gashes 

 each tree hastily, fixing a calabash below each wound, visiting 

 each one of his hundred trees and returning by the outer path 

 to his hut, where his woman, if he has one, has prepared his 



coffee. More generally he is alone, and in that case he proceeds 

 to hght his fire and drip his own coffee. 



Later in the morning he must make a second round if the 

 milk is not to coagulate in the calabashes. He takes his kero- 

 sene tin and tips the contents of each calabash into it, carefully 

 inverting the calabash on a bit of stick at the tree's foot. When 

 he returns he has perhaps three or four liters of milk, which 

 must now be coagulated in the debrees. 



A bleeder often walks from six to ten miles a day, for dis- 

 tances between each of his trees may be long ones ; there are 

 80 non-balata trees to each balata in the average Guianese forest. 

 He works from four in the morning until sundown, or more or 

 less than 14 hours a day; small wonder if he keeps Saints' days 

 now and again, or spends a merry week-end drinking rum. 



It is said to be good work if 

 the bleeder can make SO liters 

 in two weeks ; he is more likely 

 to take a month. When he com- 

 pletes one of the sheets, he takes 

 it to the foreman, who is in 

 much the same position as the 

 "grubstaker" of early California 

 gold mining days, and who is 

 remarkably lucky if he comes 

 out with any amount of money 

 in hand at the end of a season. 



Tank for Coagulating Balata. 



•One florin equals $0,402 United States ^ 



'One kilogram equals 2.2 pounds. 



•One guilder equals $0.40 United States 



Sometimes he does, and is then 

 likely to arrive in Paramaribo 

 with more guilders than his ac- 

 customed pockets can con- 

 veniently hold, and proceeds to 

 get rid of his pile in a week or 

 two. There are exceptions, 

 where the collector goes back 

 with savings made in the city, 

 and the proprietor naturally 

 gets the best of the business of 

 this season. 



In too many cases the collec- 

 tor has neither rioted nor saved 

 at the end of a season's work; 

 he has been charged a compar- 

 atively tremendous sum for 

 each scant item of food and 

 equipment. It is more easy 

 than reasonable to blame the concessionaire for this high price; 

 he has had in his turn to pay high for imported goods from the 

 United States and he is taking the risk of the balata collectors 

 failing to make good, whether from incompetence or sickness. 

 These are not healthy regions, and many men become incapac- 

 itated or die in the forests ; their successors pay their debt to 

 the company, albeit unconsciously. 



It is calculated that there are at least 10,000 men engaged in 

 the balata collecting business in Surinam ; they work on an 

 average only 160 days in the year, produce in that time about 

 800 pounds of balata which is drawn from 150 to 200 trees. 

 Some experts in the business say that the bleeder could, if he 

 chose, work eight months in the year instead of less than six 

 which is more common, but one of the main attractions of the 

 life is that the collector of balata is able to work when he 

 pleases, lay off for a day or two, have a good time when he 

 feels inclined and can go home to see his family when, if ever, 

 he saves up enough money. His rewards are, however, so 

 largely discounted by the inflated prices which he pays for the 

 miserable supply of food on which he supports life that it is 

 remarkable that this industry is as well fed with labor as it is. 

 Nothing but the hope of easy money, which has come at times 

 of high balata prices — a lure akin to that of the gold mine— • 

 takes men into the Surinam forests. 



One suggested remedy for the exorbitant values placed upon 

 food-stuffs is that the state should provide commissary stations 



