476 



receive it. In the other method, which I consider the better, the 

 cups are put on in a ring round the trunk, usually a span apart. 

 Three cuts about ij inch long are made in the bark with a small 

 axe. In this way the number of cups is proportioned to the size 

 of the tree. Tin cups are used. They are made slightly concave 

 on one side in order to fit the convexity of the tree trunk. They 

 are attached to the tree by the use of a piece of the ball of kneaded 

 clay, which each collector carries in his bag. The tapping always 

 begins as soon as there is light enough in the forest path to see 

 by. One man is usually apportioned to each path, containing say, 

 100 trees. When he has cupped his trees he sits down at the end 

 of the path for half an hour or so, but as soon as he sees that the 

 tree last tapped has ceased to drip the milk, he starts at a trot on 

 the back track, detaching and emptying the cups into his calabash 

 as quickly as possible. Speed throughout is a great object, as the 

 milk latex speedily coagulates, and then can only be sold on the 

 market for an inferior price, as serwambi, as compared to the ob- 

 tained for that which has been smoke-cured. When the men arrive 

 at the central hut from their different converging paths they each 

 empty their quantum of the latex taken for the mornings work into 

 one of the large Indian native earthernware pans, usually used as 

 a receptacle. Care is taken to squeeze out with the hands all of 

 the already coagulated curd-like masses. These are thrown on one 

 side to be made up into balls. Earthen pots in form of miniature 

 kilns are placed over small fires, and the " siringero " sits down to 

 the really tedious part of his business. He drops a handful or so 

 of the oily palm nuts down the narrow neck of the kiln, and forth- 

 with arises a dense smoke. Taking a wooden mould like an ace 

 of spades in form, and holding it over the pan, he pours some of the 

 latex over it in a thin film keeping it turned, so that it shall not run 

 off before he succeeds in setting it to an even surface, which it soon 

 does as it passed backward and forward through the column of 

 smoke. This is continued one coating after another, until he has 

 finished the day's supply of rubber-milk. He then sticks his mould 

 up in the thatch of the roof of the shed for the repetition of the 

 process next day, and until he finds the thickness of the biscuit 

 makes the mould unwieldly to handle, when it is cut clown one side, 

 slipped off, and stored. This is the native method, which can with- 

 out doubt be improved upon under conditions of systematic cultiva- 

 tion. 



But as all the stock of plants or seed available for the planting 

 and cultivation of this tree in the Eastern tropics are and will be 

 derived from direct lineal descendants of some or other of those 

 7,000 odd originally introduced by me at the instance of the Govern- 

 ment of India in 1876-77, it may be well if it be recollected that 

 their exact place of origin was in 3 deg. of south latitude, and to 

 remember their natural conditions there. This the more so since 

 a very general error seems to have obtained that swampy or wet 

 lands are the fitting locality for the Hevea. This would seem to 

 have arisen in that the "explorer" of a few years' experience would 

 have some of these trees pointed out to him (naturally in answer to 



