50 PARA RUBBER. 



Recent experiments have shown how improvement can be made 

 on the old method of tapping every alternate year and obtaining H 

 lb. of rubber per tree, per year, from eleven-year-old trees. It ha 

 been stated that the yields which are possible in the near future may 

 if present prices are maintained, be such as to allow one to consider 

 the contingency of re-planting every twelfth year. The yield which 

 has been obtained in some parts of Ceylon shows that by somewhat 

 drastic methods it is possible to obtain from particular trees in one 

 year's tapping as much as the most sanguine only a few years ago 

 anticipated in ten years' tapping, though it must be borne in mind 

 that the effect on the trees cannot, with our present knowledge, be 

 accurately forecasted and may or may not prove to be detrimental. 



Effect of Bad Tapping. 



It is more than likely that the tapping implements and methods 

 of the future will be such as to ensure that the minimum, if any, dam- 

 age is done to the cambium. With all due respect to the inventors 

 who have placed their knives before the public, it may be stated 

 that the faultless or ideal paring implement has not yet been pro- 

 duced, though there seems every likelihood that it will soon be on 

 the market. There are still several implements sold and used which 

 should be classed as dangerous. In order to impress all planters 

 with the ultimate effect of bad tapping, a couple of photographs are 

 here reproduced. 



In the accompanying illustration — Plate 6 — the upper figure shows 

 a part of a large tree with the bark and part of the wood removed. 

 The large approximately V-shaped hollow in the exposed section is 

 due to the decay of the wood, which occurred internally to a depth of 

 several inches, and was caused originally by making a large V wound 

 that scraped below the cambium into the timber all along the in- 

 cision. The lower figure on tin same Plate shows a section of the 

 wood with part of the bark and outer tissues removed. The wood was, 

 with the original tapping, considerably damaged, and several years 

 after the injury was made the parts above it were found to be very 

 hard and to give very little latex : the wood was permanently 

 damaged. In this particular case the outward appearance was not 

 striking in any way, and only the poor yield of latex led to 

 the inquiry which revealed the extent of the permanent injury that 

 had been made. The black V-shaped lines in the exposed wood show 

 the direction and extent of the old V cuts, which penetrated to the 

 cambium. In all such cases the decomposition of a vital part of the 

 tree has been set up, and the vigour and longevity of the tree appreci- 

 ably affected. I have seen several other malformations produced by 

 damaging the wood while tapping ; often the areas become very 

 " warty " and present a series of very large balls of hard woody tissue 

 which cannot be tapped, and which seem to rest in sockets of the 

 timber; in other cases large scars exist where the chisel has cut 

 below the cambium. The injury in all cases is permanent and can 



