Rubber in para, Brasil. 397 



some time, the men employed are using to-day the most slender trees and even the 

 shoots ; and I have been assured that this custom, and that of not letting the tree have 

 time to recuperate, has destroyed those that were the most accessibly situated on the 

 river banks. 



" But little reliance can be placed on the information obtained from uneducated 

 and unobserving persons like those who are engaged in that trade ; when I asked how 

 long it would take for a tree, under ordinary conditions, to reach a vigorous maturity, 

 I was told from ten to fifteen years. 



" 4. The exact yield that each tree can give has never been known, although I have 

 asked it often of the workmen. It is evident that much must depend upon its size and 

 condition ; and, probably, upon the place where it has been growing. It is generally 

 believed that the trees which yield the most, are those whose roots are periodically 

 submerged, but I also have been assured that there is a species of trees which grow in 

 high altitudes and give good sap, though not abundantly. The tree is centenary, and 

 attains great dimensions under favorable circumstances, both as to the locality and 

 age. 



" To answer your question to the best of my knowledge, I will say, that many 

 persons have told me that the trees from which no rubber has been previously ex- 

 tracted, yield, in the season, as much as sixteen pounds. Others have given double 

 that quantity, and some only seven pounds when they had been tapped before. 



"5. In Brazil rubber is extracted from the trees annually. An earthen vase is 

 fixed to the tree below the incision to receive the sap. The workman who makes this 

 same operation on a certain number of them, collects daily the sap contained in the 

 vases ; and, returning to his hut, smokes it in the evening, and during the night, a 

 process which is used to harden it. In the rainy season the rivers rise and generally 

 inundate the places where the works are going on ; if that does not happen, the con- 

 stant rains prevent the clay from adhering to the trees, which, for this reason, are left 

 untouched until the return of the dry season. The information I have been able to 

 obtain leads me to believe, that although incisions are made all over the tree, they do 

 not cause it any serious injury, or, at least, the harm done to it is much slower in its 

 effects. I consider this as a sufficient answer to your sixth question. 



" 7. Three kinds of rubber are produced in Para, fine, middling, and ordinary, 

 or negro head. The medium is somewhat impure or adulterated, and frequently con- 

 tains a mixture of smoked and fresh rubber. The ordinary one consists principally of 

 the waste or scrapings taken out of the vases already mentioned, or of pieces which 

 became hard when the sap flowed from the incisions. All this is mixed with the 

 sap, sometimes imperfectly smoked, and sold with all its impurities. The value of 

 rubber varies. The middling quality is generally worth from one to two dollars less 

 than the fine one, per arroba of thirty-two pounds, but little of it is put on the market. 

 The ordinary kind is always in great demand. From last accounts, the difference in 

 the price of one or the other class was from seventeen to twenty-six milreis per arroba 

 of thirty-two pounds. 



"8. As no plantations have been made, I cannot tell at what distance the trees 

 ought to be separated. However, as they grow wild, and their value would increase 

 according to their growth and size, I would plant them twenty-four feet apart from 

 each other. To utilize the land between them, I would plant some cacao, which would 

 give sufficient shade to the saplings, and produce a revenue several years before the 

 rubber-tree reaches its maturity. This idea is simply speculative, although confirmed 

 by various opinions of more or less value, which I obtained incidentally. 



" 10. I am unable to inform you as to the most proper soil and climate for the de- 

 velopment of the rubber-tree. It grows in the valley of the Amazon, preferring damp 

 places or those liable to be inundated along the water-course. The species found in 



