34 



asked us not to mention his name, and in deference to his 

 modesty the hero of these notes must go unnamed. 



The estate was generally clean weeded with the ex- 

 ception of one piece of steep land, which had been planted 

 with rows of Crotalaria to check the wash; the manager 

 was so pleased with the result that he intended extending 

 the system. 



Tapping at the base of old, but previously tapped trees, 

 and young trees, was adopted. The pricker only was 

 used to obtain the latex. The coolie task was i lb. 

 of dry rubber from old trees and ^ lb. from young trees 

 per day; 22 ounces of well-rolled wet rubber were equal 

 to I lb. of dry, each coolie's lot being numbered and 

 subsequently checked when dry. The sheets are dried 

 for one day at 100 degs. F. and then for seven days 

 at 90 degs. F., in an X)rdinary tea withering shed. The 

 yield from ten-year-old trees was 2 lb. ; from seven-year- 

 old plants I lb.; the tapping was very gently done, and 

 only at the base of the tree. 



The trees are tapped twenty days per month through- 

 out the year. Drip tins were used in order to reduce 

 the quantity of scrap; without these simple tin cans, the 

 manager says he gets nearly 50 per cent, of scrap, but 

 with them he hopes to get it down to 10 per cent, of 

 the total rubber. The figures of the crops for 1907 

 showed 88 per cent, of clean sheet and 12 per cent, of 

 crepe scrap. 



The tapping lines are marked on the tree in a very 

 simple way, the only appliances being a walking-stick and 

 a piece of string. The latter is tied to the stick to form 

 a right-angled triangle, the stick is placed against the 

 tree and the hypothenuse becomes the tapping line, sloping 

 at an angle of 45 degs. Simplicity was again obvious 

 in the coconut shells employed for collecting the latex 

 at the base of each tree; and also in the name given to 

 the latest knife invented by the manager. 



We were shown some interesting photographs depict- 

 ing the lateral spread of the root systems of Para trees 

 which had been blown over. One tree grown in low land 

 with its tap root in water, thirteen years old, had lateral 

 roots 35 feet long; another of the same age had a lateral 

 root system measuring 72 feet in diameter. 



