CHAPTER V. 

 TAPPING OPERATIONS AND IMPLEMENTS. 



Importance of tapping operations — The thickness of the bark tissuo; 

 and shedding of dried latex tubes — Effect of bad tapping illustrated — 

 Tapping knives — Requisites of a good tapping knife — Clean cuts and 

 scraping — Protection of the cambium — Paring from right to loft and 

 left to right— Minimum excision of cortex and bark — Paring and 

 pricking — Patent tapping knives— Native implement — Carpenters 

 chisel — Surgical scrapers and planes — Beta knife— Golledge's knife, 

 construction and illustration — Holloway's knives — Mackenzie's 

 knife — Collet's knife — Brown & Co.'s knives, construction and 

 illustrations — Eastern Produce and Estates Co.'s knife — Bowman's 

 and Northway's three knives, construction, method of use, and illus- 

 trations — Dixon's knife, construction, improvements, and illustration 

 — Macadam's Comb pricker — -Macadam-Miller paring knife. 



rr^HE question of how to tap Para rubber trees is one which 

 1 deserves special consideration and is not outweighed in impor- 

 tance by even the process of curing or methods of planting this pro- 

 duct. On the methods of tapping depend not only the quality ami quan- 

 tity of thelatex arid rubber, but the life and future condition of the trees. 

 We are concerned with the laticiferous tubes in the outer part of 

 the steins when the trees are ready for tapping. 



The thickness of this tissue may vary from !, to about | inch or 

 more, according to the age of the tree. 



The average thickness of the undisturbed bark of twenty-year-old 

 trees in Ceylon is about £ inch (9-5 mm.), though trees at Singa- 

 pore, only II years old. possess hark of this thickness. The outer 

 part to a depth of \ inch (3 mm.) docs not contain many tubes, 

 but the inner part has a large number, and from the inner , \ to 

 ('._, inch the milk mainly flows. The tubes in the outer part dry 

 up and are regularly shed with the outer bark tissues. 



When the original cortex has been removed new tissue is produced, 

 mainly from above downwards and within outwards, and in this the 

 latex tubes arise de novo as in the original material. It is impor- 

 tant to remember that the extension of these tubes in the cortex of 

 Hevea is a gradual one, and that in many instances the parts of the 

 laticiferous system are not extensive, and in tapping operations only 

 a fraction of the whole milk-containing tubes may be drawn upon. 



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