LIFE ON A RUBBER PLANTATION 79 



they belong to the grown-ups, have to be missed out 

 for a time because they are doing a rest cure. Most 

 of the trees in a grown-up section are, however, tapped 

 daily, or on alternate days, for the greater part of 

 the year, but the circumference of the trunk is so 

 portioned off for operations that no part is retapped 

 until old wounds have completely healed. Yet it is 

 seldom that a tree is tapped at a higher distance than 

 can be conveniently reached from the ground. The 

 amount of milk yielded by a tree depends partly on 

 its age, and partly on the state of its health. If a tree 

 gives enough milk to make about f pound of rubber 

 the first year it is tapped, it is considered a good 

 specimen. As it grows older, the yield should steadily 

 increase. During 1909, one of the finest old Hevea 

 trees in Ceylon, aged thirty- three, gave 15 gallons of 

 milk, which contained 76 pounds of rubber. 



At random we choose which coolie we will accom- 

 pany on his round, and as we dog his footsteps we see 

 a great deal of the outdoor life on a rubber plantation. 

 At first, all our attention is taken up by watching how 

 the one tapper does his work. The trees he visits 

 already bear a herringbone, or half herringbone, 

 design on the lower part of the trunk ; but it consists 

 of alternate strips of almost bared wood and of bark, 

 slanting down into the central line. With a tool some- 

 thing like a chisel, the coolie takes a shaving off each 

 strip of bark, whereupon milk oozes out from the cuts, 

 makes for the central channel, and trickles down into 

 an enamel cup that awaits it at the base of the trunk. 



Presently we are joined by another onlooker. 

 Although he looks very much like a coolie, he is far and 

 away the superior of the working-class mass. Ho 



