82 PARA RUBBER. 



about 6 feet from the base. The sides of these incisions should 

 not exceed 3 inches in length, nor be nearer than 3 inches apart 

 at the top! It is essential that they do not quite meet at the 

 base, as pieces of bark are liable to be broken off by the junction 

 of the cuts. Directly an incision has been made, a collecting 

 vessel should be fixed at its base to collect the latex, which 

 commences to flow almost immediately the tree is wounded. It 

 is advisable to place a small quantity of water in each vessel to 

 prevent the latex coagulating before it is taken to the curing- 

 room. 



On the following day a second row of similar incisions should 

 be made about i inch below the previous incisions, but alter- 

 nating with them, and this should be repeated on each succeed- 

 ing day until the base of the tree is reached. 



Tapping, according to these directions, limits the period of 

 tapping to seventeen or eighteen days. 



The period during which Para trees are tapped on many 

 estates frequently extends much longer than this, but I am of 

 opinion it is much safer to tap a tree lightly and at fairly 

 frequent intervals than to practically drain it at one tapping. 



Latterly, V tapping operations have been further modified 

 by shaving away the bark from the lower surface of each side 

 of the V. 



Where due care was observed to prevent injury to the cambium 

 and wood the trees have suffered few ill effects from this method 

 of tapping. The amount of labour required in connection with 

 the fixing, emptying, cleaning, &c., of the large number of collect- 

 ing cups which this method involves is doubtlessly one of the 

 principal reasons why it has been largely superseded during 

 recent years by other tapping methods. 



HERRING-BONE SHAPED INCISIONS. 



Native rubber collectors in the Gold Coast Colony have 

 tapped indigenous trees (Funtumia elastica) by means of herring- 

 bone shaped incisions for the last thirty years. 'The method 

 first generally adopted by the planters in the Malay Peninsula 

 for the extraction of rubber from their Hevea trees is known as 

 the herring-bone system of tapping7)and it is probably the one 

 most generally adopted for tapping cultivated Hevea trees at 



