82 THE RUBBER INDUSTRY 



The latex tested was obtained from trees in regular 

 tapping since the beginning of the season ; Nos. i, 2 

 and 4 from forest-grown trees, and No. 3 from a twelve- 

 year-old plantation. 



Another test made was on forest-grown trees in the 

 vicinity of Abuna, on the Madeira-Marmore Railway, 

 where some experiments in gouge tapping on the 

 herring-bone system had been tried in the previous 

 July. Two sets of trees were tapped for fifteen days, 

 one with the machadinho and the other by the gouge, 

 using the half herring-bone system with two and three 

 cuts, according to the general condition of bark surface 

 and trees. For this work it was necessary to pay 

 wages to each man at the rate of thirteen shillings and 

 fourpence per diem, and it will be seen that such pay- 

 ments entail a severe loss on every pound of rubber 

 harvested. The experiment was commenced on Sep- 

 tember 29, and concluded on October 15 ; it furnishes 

 interesting data regarding the relative results obtained 

 by the gouge and the machadinho. On the gouge- 

 tapped trees indications of cambium disease appeared 

 towards the end of the experiment, and thus confirmed 

 the deduction previously reached, to the effect that 

 any excision system of extracting latex was inappli- 

 cable in the Amazon Valley, for the reason that the 

 increased yield did not compensate for the danger from 

 cambium rot and the additional labour force required. 

 The subjoined daily record of the results of this experi- 

 ment is self-explanatory. An allowance of 20 per 

 cent, for waste should be made to ascertain the dry 

 weight of the lump and scrap ? in calculating the aggre- 

 gate amount of marketable rubber : 



