142 THE RUBBER TREE BOOK 



tapping till the trees are seven or eight years of age. If the 

 exigencies of finance would not permit this on too widespread 

 a scale, it would be well worth while to reserve a limited area of 

 say 50 acres, and later on compare the returns from the 50 

 acres untapped till the trees had arrived at the age of eight 

 years with similar areas tapped in the ordinary way. It 

 would not be at all surprising to find that the returns from 

 the former greatly exceeded the returns from the latter. The 

 reasons for this would be twofold. First, the trees would be 

 more healthy and vigorous owing to their not having been bled 

 of their food-supplies by the cutting away of bark, the drawing 

 off of latex and the interference with the channels which dis- 

 tribute food-supplies to the various parts of the trees. Second, 

 the trees being better grown, there would be an increased 

 tapping-area of bark available. 



Some planters contend that the returns of latex from cuts 

 made on the left-hand side of the downward conducting- 

 channel are markedly greater than those from the right-hand 

 side. Others as stoutly deny that it is so in their experience. 

 As the whole circumference of the trunk of the tree has to be 

 tapped at one time or other up to a reasonable height, there 

 does not seem to be much in the point to concern one, if there 

 is any point in it, which does not seem probable. 



When the first few Hevea rubber trees planted in the Middle 

 East came to the bearing stage the planters had no idea how 

 they were to get the rubber out of them. In Ceylon, as in the 

 Federated Malay States, the planters attacked the trees with 

 axes and knives and slashed them all over the stems. When 

 the latex ran out and dried on the tree stems it was rolled up 

 into balls and shipped off to the London market, where first 

 consignments fetched from two shillings and ninepence to three 

 shillings per pound. It was soon obvious to planters that more 

 refined methods of tapping must be employed. 



Small V cuts all over the bark succeeded the system of 

 general slashing, but were found to leave the bark in a very 

 rough and irregular state. Indeed, the small V cuts and the 

 use of the pricker were the cause of the death of an immense 

 number of fine old trees which, with reasonable treatment, 

 might have been alive and yielding large returns at the present 

 day. The trees which have survived such treatment show by 



