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to just only cat down to the cambium layer and not into the 

 wood, so that the wound may heal as soon as possible. Just after 

 the first cut the latex flows freely, fills up the gaping cut and 

 flows over, but before very long, say within two minutes at the 

 outside, the flow ceases because the latex begins to coagulate of 

 its own accord in the cut. Arrangements are made to collect the 

 latex that falls on mats made of thin strips of bamboo w oven 

 together. Little boys on the ground shift these mats about under 

 each cut as the man up the tree makes it, so that the dripping 

 latex can cover the mat. Before the end of the day this dripped 

 rubber has joined together on the mat and has coagulated and 

 formed a regular skin which on drying can be pulled off say in 48 

 hours, or less sometimes, and be further dried. The latex that 

 has coagulated in the cuts turns a reddy brown colour, highly 

 appreciated in the London market, and is pulled out of the cut in 

 about 48 to 56 hours afterwards, yielding fine elastic fids of 

 rubber. This rubber is then slightly handpicked to get rid of 

 pieces of bark, dirt, etc., and is laid out on shelves in an open 

 shed to be air-dried. After drying this fine red rubber that 

 coagulates in the cuts is pressed by a screw press in cubes of one 

 hundredweight each, which are wrapped round with cheap white 

 cloth and a double covering of gunny bag. The cubes retain their 

 shape and are easily portable. Such rubber has fetched four 

 shillings and threepence a pound recently in the London market. 

 The latex that dripped on the mats is similarly cleaned, dried, 

 and packed separately, and realizes very little less. This latter, 

 which we locally name "mat" rubber, is sometimes liable to 

 ferment, as some interior portion of a large drop of latex has not 

 perhaps properly coagulated, and hence at times this rubber 

 sometimes fetches a penny less per pound. Formerly mat rubber 

 used to turn black and did not fetch so much. Latterly I 

 ordered the mats to be soaked in a solution of the bark that 

 comes off the tree in tapping. This dyes the mats red. The 

 white latex when dripping down seems to be tanned by this dye 

 on the mats in a similar way to that in the cuts where latex rests 

 and coagulates. The reason for early coagulation is perhaps due 

 to this tannic acid effect of the bark on the sides of the cut and 

 the dye on the mats. The "mat" rubber we export is mostly 

 red. Of the whole outturn of our plantations, some 15.000 lbs. 

 last season, the proportion of "mat" rubber to that collected 

 from the cuts as coagulated very elastic rubber was only 25 p.c. 

 of the whole outturn. The method of collection seems, therefore, 

 as good as can be devised. Of course it is more costly to win 

 this latex from the Ficus Elastica than it is to w in latex from 

 the Para (Hevea Braziliensis) tree, owing to the fact that the men 

 who operate have to climb the trees twice to get the rubber. 



Camp Darragaon, E. S. CARR. 



Goalpara District, Cons. Forest, Assam. 



6th April, 1905. 



