24 RUBBER 



possible at the moment, and with as little trouble as 

 possible. Some time ago masters began to see that 

 they could not afford to let their men be so wasteful ; 

 if the Hevea- trees were destroyed in the more accessible 

 parts of the forest, which had only been opened up at 

 much expense and under great difficulties, the hunting- 

 grounds would have to be extended farther inland, at 

 far greater expense and under much greater diffi- 

 culties. Nowadays, owing to the growing popularity 

 of Plantation Rubber, there is a strong feeling that 

 tapping methods should be further improved. Brazil 

 and the neighbouring rubber countries have wakened 

 up to the necessity not only of safeguarding their 

 Hevea-trees against total destruction, but of protecting 

 them against the injuries caused by unskilled opera- 

 tions. Many experiments are being made with a view 

 to producing a less clumsy tool than the machadinha, 

 and the very hard task has been taken in hand of 

 trying to persuade a large but widely scattered army 

 of rough men to work more carefully. 



In tapping a rubber- tree, the cut must only go deep 

 enough to open the cells which harbour the sap — 

 which, by the way, in simple English is called " milk," 

 and in technical language " latex." These cells are 

 in the bark, extending from just beneath its surface to 

 the cambium, or true outer skin of the wood. If the 

 tapping tool pierces the wood, the tree gets maimed 

 for life. Henceforth its supply of milk will be more 

 difficult to get at, for when the wounds are sufficiently 

 healed for the tree again to be tapped in the same 

 region, the trunk will be knotted and furrowed in the 

 way you have already seen. Consequently the milk- 

 cells will be situated at different levels, instead of being 



