H6 RUBBER AND 



Direction of Cut. 



In the half-herring-bone and half-spiral methods of 

 tapping, the cuts are usually made from the right to left 

 of the operator. There is a considerable body of 

 evidence to show that more latex is obtained in this 

 way than from cuts made in the reverse direction. The 

 reason for this phenomenon is not entirely clear. It 

 may partly be associated with the fact that tapping 

 from right to left is easier for a right-handed person, 

 and is therefore carried out more efficiently. But this 

 does not seem sufficient to account for the whole of the 

 difference. 



Distance Between Successive Cuts and Yield 

 at Different Levels. 



In various systems of tapping, a distance of one foot 

 between successive cuts has been very widely adopted. 

 Here, again, prolonged and laborious experiments are 

 required in order to ascertain what is the most profitable 

 distance to adopt in the case of each system and under 

 various conditions. The evidence contained in the 

 following paragraphs, which bears partly on this ques- 

 tion, requires to be greatly elaborated. 



When a fairly old tree is first tapped by a herring- 

 bone or multiple V system, adopting the usual interval 

 of a foot between the cuts, it is found that the latex 

 flows in nearly equal quantity from each cut of the 

 vertical series. As the bark between the several cuts 

 becomes used up, a relatively larger proportion of latex 



