TREES THAT COUNT HEVEA BRASILIENSIS 29 



wound prior to fixing the collecting vessel, which 

 should also contain a few drops of the solution to 

 prevent premature coagulation. The latex cups 

 should be collected within three hours of the 

 incisions being made, so as to conserve as far as 

 possible those latent qualities which assist coagula- 

 tion in the factory. 



The following morning fresh incisions must be 

 made in the intervals between those already formed, 

 the process being repeated next morning, when the 

 whole of the tapping space will have been utilised. 

 At the end of the sixth day the original wounds 

 should be re-opened — an operation which is also per- 

 formed on each of the other wounds in turn. This 

 work can be done at intervals of six days until the 

 latex has ceased to flow. Altogether a period of 

 a hundred days may be so employed, and not less 

 than forty tappings profitably applied to any one 

 tree in a single season. As a rule it will be found that 

 the yield from the reopened incision — technically 

 called wound response — is much greater than that 

 originally made, with a corresponding increase at 

 each additional reopening. Tapped in this manner 

 Hevea trees not more than six and a half years old 

 have been made to yield 2J lb. dry rubber without in 

 any way injuring the tree or interfering with the sub- 

 sequent yield. The proportion of increase of latex 

 secured by the operation of wound responses is shown 

 from the following table taken from a company's 

 return published privately a short time ago. Thirty 

 incisions of the open V type were made, and, taking 



