5" 



PARA RUBBER. 



The Penang Gardens rubber tree, figured in the August number 

 of this Bulletin, has now been tapped for the seventh time and the 

 result is 2 Tb. i3ioz. of dry rubber which makes a total of i8tK 7 oz. 

 in seven years. If this can be maintained, and I see no reason 

 why it should not be as the tree has at no time been excessively 

 tapped, the yield of latex in fact being almost as good when tapping 

 ceased as at any period of the tapping and much better than at the 

 beginning, the financial result of a rubber plantation on which the 

 trees are as good as this, and I have heard of some a good deal 

 better, cannot be questioned. The method followed during the 

 whole period of tapping this tree from June 1897 to September 1902 

 has been the same throughout, but other methods have been tried 

 in a more or less perfunctory manner on some smaller trees and f 

 consider this the best; so at the risk of repeating what many readers 

 of the Bulletin have already read in the Annual Reports on the 

 Botanic Gardens I will briefly describe the system. A small per- 

 pendicular channel a foot or more in length and about one eighth 

 of an inch broad, but not deep enough to obtain much rubber, is 

 first made, and at the base of this is affixed the tin or other re- 

 ceptacle to receive the latex. 1 his channel is not subsequently 

 enlarged or interfered with its purpose being merely to conduct the 

 latex to the tin. Leading to this channel diagonally are made two 

 or three incisions on either side which supply the latex and from 

 the upper surface of which a thin shaving is removed every morning 

 *or every alternate morning which causes a fresh flow of latex. In 

 each of these tappings a thin shaving has been removed thirteen 

 times which with the initial opening of the cuts make fourteen 

 operations and constitute what I term one tapping. It will thus be 

 seen that the number of times this tree has actually been operated 

 on amount to seven times fourteen, that is ninety-eight, and the 

 average amount of dry rubber obtained from each operation is about 

 three ounces. The daily amount however varies very much, the 

 yield at the beginning, during the first two or three* operations, be- 

 ing so little that any one not acquainted with the nature of this tree 

 and who has been accustomed to tap " Rambong" or other native 

 rubbers in which the greatest flow r of latex is at the first operation 

 would naturally be disappointed. I have before me the figures 

 showing the amount of the daily collections of three tappings 

 weighed while still wet with the water pressed out by hand, and 

 the first seven operations gave 94i oz. while the second seven gave 

 210 oz. or a total of 303 oz. This when dried gave 156 oz. or a 

 loss of about 50 per cent, and as I have already stated in one of my 

 annual reports this proportion of loss in drying may be taken for 

 all practical purposes as a basis of calculation by planters. As it is 

 advisable to put some water in the tins to prevent too rapid coagu- 

 lation there will be a little variation but for all practical purposes 

 the calculation is sufficiently correct. The latest tapping was not 

 weighed in the wet state but each day's collection was marked and 

 weighed separately when dry, and the result as regards the increase 



