62 THE WHOLE ART OF RUBBER-GROWING 



wide and not less than 4 inches apart. The exposed 

 bark, being green and tender, was then blistered by 

 the sun and the latex allowed to exude from the 

 wound. In this way as much as a pound of dry 

 rubber of a sort (dirty of course, and imperfectly 

 coagulated) has been gathered from three-year-old 

 trees. This system had the advantage over the plan 

 of knife excisions in that the bark closed up in the 

 course of the year and retained all its old characteris- 

 tics as to colour, texture, and general appearance. 

 In short, the tree remained a true Manihot Glaziovii, 

 and did not deteriorate as its compeers had done into 

 a mere botanical parasol for keeping the fierce rays 

 of the sun from the tenderer plants around. 



The Indian Government, through its Agricultural 

 Department, evidently having the results of these ex- 

 periments in mind, strongly urged in 1883 the plant- 

 ing-up of the large areas, then in private hands and 

 growing nothing but lantana and weeds, with the 

 Manihot Glaziovii. But the advice was not followed, 

 and in 1890 Dr. Trimen was forced to admit in his 

 report for that year that interest in Ceara rubber had 

 very much died away in Ceylon. Only trees that had 

 attained an age of eight years were operated on and 

 not more than 3 oz. of dry rubber taken therefrom. 

 A ten-year-old tree was expected to give J Ib. only. 

 When the planter had obtained these averages he 

 religiously left the trees alone until another year or, 

 it may be, two years. He selected the wet season 

 (June to October) for the work. The outer layers 

 of bark were peeled off, the inner bark stabbed 

 or hacked carelessly until the 3 oz. or the \ Ib., as 



