176 THE RUBBER TREE BOOK 



the Bowman and Northway, the Sculfer, the Macadam-Miller, 

 the Barrydo, the Burgess and the Reefer. 



There are many other excellent knives, perhaps less known 

 to fame but which do quite satisfactory work. 



After all, it is largely a question of each man to his taste. 

 Where coolies are found to be doing good work with any class 

 of knife it is not wise to be too ready to introduce another 

 type. Coolies, as is well known, do not like changes, and when 

 they have been accustomed and trained up to execute good 

 tapping with one class of knife, it is generally most inadvisable 

 to make a change. If a change is made, the quality of the 

 tapping is very apt to suffer for a considerable time. 



The estate manager should insist on all tapping-knives 

 being kept clean and brightly polished. On one well-known 

 Java estate the manager has a long rack in the factory, with 

 hooks upon which the tapping-knives are all hung up at the 

 end of the day's work. Each hook is numbered, and above 

 the numbers are labels with the name of the coolie who uses that 

 particular tapping-knife. The knives are regularly inspected, 

 and every pay-day the coolie whose knife has been kept the 

 cleanest and brightest receives a small bonus. The system is 

 found to work well. Tapping-knives should be inspected 

 regularly, to ensure that the edges of the blades are kept sharp. 

 If knives are blunt, fine tapping work cannot be done, and the 

 surface where the parings are taken off is dragged and broken. 



Cups. Coconut shells should never be used as receptacles 

 for receiving the latex, as it is impossible to keep them clean. 

 Wherever used they are invariably found to be in a very dirty 

 condition. If latex accumulates impurities at such an early 

 stage of the proceedings as tapping, it is extremely difficult to 

 turn out a first-class quality of rubber from the factory. Tinned 

 iron cups have gone out of fashion, as it was found that they 

 always got rusty and discoloured the latex. Enamelled iron 

 cups are also objectionable, as the enamel chips off and rusty 

 spots appear. They are also heavy and sometimes expensive. 

 Glass cups are very generally used all over the East. Nowa- 

 days they are generally made with lemon-shaped bottoms, so 

 that they will not stand upright on a flat surface. When at 

 first introduced these were made with flat bottoms, but it was 

 found that they disappeared from the estates in thousands, 



