404 flnfcfas'lRubber Culture in /iDejico. 



2. The tree will grow from the seed ; the latter part is answered above. 



3. It would yield the milk at any period of growth, but of course in quantity pro- 

 portioned to the size of the tree. As the tree has never been cultivated, no systematic 

 observation has been made in regard to its growth. I should think, however, that a 

 plantation would not be ready for profitable working in less than fifteen years. 



4. That depends upon the size and condition of the tree. New trees yield better 

 than those which have been repeatedly tapped. A seringal is considered a good one that 

 will yield eighteen pounds a day per 100 trees. The proprietor of a seringal, if he has 

 good judgment and wishes to preserve his trees in good condition, will give them an 

 interval of repose during the season. It is not safe, if the seringal is to be worked 

 year after year consecutively, to tap the same trees daily for more than three months 

 of the six which make the crop season. 



5. Every year during the dry season, which may be said to last six months, vary- 

 ing, however, in term and duration in different parts of the valley. 



6. The collector having cleared paths through the forests from tree to tree (which 

 is no light job), goes his rounds in the morning, and beginning as high up as he can reach, 

 makes with a hatchet light diagonal cuts about six inches apart all round the body of 

 the tree. Under each of these he sticks a small cup fashioned of damp clay, a lump 

 of which he carries with him. Each collector is supposed to attend to one hundred trees. 

 As they are often far apart, by the time he has gotten back to his starting-place and taken 

 his meal, it is necessary to go his round again. He empties the little clay cups into 

 which the milk has trickled, and returns with it to his hut. The next day he makes 

 other cuts about six inches below the first and under the spaces left in the first circle, 

 and so on every day. The tree bleeds most abundantly as the cuts descend. Now the 

 smoking process must commence, or the milk will spoil. This is done by means of a 

 nut called urucuri, which burned under a sort of inverted funnel gives a very pungent 

 ammoniacal smoke. A sort of paddle is dipped into the milk and passed through this 

 smoke. Layer after layer is thus smoked and dried, until the weight becomes unman- 

 ageable. An incision is then made round the edge, the mould taken out, and the pro- 

 cess recommenced until the milk is all secured. It is to the use of this urucuri that the 

 superior quality of the Para rubber, and particularly that of the Madeira River, is 

 attributed. There are several qualities of rubber-tree, of which at least three are well 

 known to the ordinary worker. One of these called "the white" gives little or no 

 milk. 



7. Answered before. They are found scattered through the forest at irregular dis- 

 tances. In some places and in some districts more abundant than in others, but never 

 holding almost sole possession of the ground, like the pine- and the oak-trees in some 

 parts of North America. 



8. I should think it would require shade, in early periods of growth, at least. 



9. It must be less exclusive in choice of climate than has generally been supposed. 

 Recently it is said to have been found as far south as Rio de Janeiro and Paraguay. It 

 grows abundantly far up the river Purus, in Bolivia, where the climate is temperate, 

 and no doubt would adapt itself to most countries which are free from frost in winter and 

 have a long and hot summer. This, however, is mere conjecture. I have no doubt 

 that it would grow in Mexico, and even in Southern California. Here it is found to 

 flourish best on the river-sides where the roots are periodically overflowed. There is, I 

 am told, an upland tree, but it does not yield so well. Too much dependence, how- 

 ever, must not be placed on such accounts. The workers in rubber are a very ignorant 

 class, not apt to make accurate observations, and the banks of the rivers are almost the 

 only parts of the country that are accessible. 



10. The height I do not know. The largest of which I have any account was five 

 feet in diameter ; three feet would probably be a nearer average. 



