72 THE RUBBER INDUSTRY 



tree. This process of hacking the stem bark is con- 

 tinued for some ten days, or until the milk ceases to 

 run. Then the tree is felled, and the bark of the upper 

 portion of the trunk and branches is subjected to a 

 further slashing to open the remaining latex cells. 

 After a lapse of some thirty hours the exudation of 

 milk stops, the tree is abandoned, and the gang passes 

 on to the next group, and so the process is repeated. 

 The rubber is wound into balls, or the lumps are 

 packed into bales of from 60 to 70 pounds weight, and 

 from time to time these are conveyed to some convenient 

 central locality to await the end of the tapping season, 

 or for shipment as opportunity offers. Many of these 

 caucho-gaihering gangs work under agreements to sell 

 their harvest to the owners of the forest tracts where 

 they carry on their operations; others are quite inde- 

 pendent, and confine their enterprise to the national 

 territories, and then dispose of the rubber to the nearest 

 dealers. 



The destructive methods employed for the extraction 

 of castilloa latex are only tolerated on account of the 

 scanty yield obtained by other systems of tapping, and 

 for the fact that the industry cannot be continued on a 

 profitable basis unless a comparatively large quantity 

 can be gathered, to enable these gangs of men to earn 

 an adequate return for their labour. In view of the fact 

 that nearly one-quarter of the total rubber exports of 

 the Amazon Valley consist of cauclio, it is evident that 

 the exhaustion of the sources of supply cannot be far 

 distant, unless the low prices now prevailing for this 

 product act as a restriction on the amount annually 

 collected. 



