and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society-— June, 1910. 557 



on hill land than on flat because the light had 

 more chance to get among trees on the slopes of 

 hills than on level ground. He thought that, 

 from his observations, close planting would, 

 during the first few years, give more rubber 

 than wide planting. 



Mr. Parkinson— said he considered two years 

 was an ample allowance for bark renewal on 

 the first tapping but afterwards three years was 

 required. 



The Chairman— said a similar view had been 

 sent in by one planter. 



Mr. Cumming —said there were a great many 

 estates the trees on which might be tapped 

 after six months for bark renewal. As the 

 Chairman had said it all depended on the depth 

 of the cut. 



The Chairman— said that the general opinion 

 seemed to be that three years was the right time 

 to allow for bark renewal though it was his im- 

 pression that most estates were worked on a 

 tour year system. It was not a question only 

 of what a tree would bear, it had to be consid- 

 ered what thickness was best to give an econ- 

 omic return. 



Number of Cuts. 



On the question of the number of cuts to the 

 inch the Chairman— said he had received writ- 

 ten answers giving 10, 16 to 20, 22 and 25 cuts. 



Mr. Lake— said he favoured 25 and Mr H T 

 Fraser thought 30 was a possible number. 



The Chairman — considered that 20 cuts per 

 inch ought to be obtained, that 22 was a good 

 average. He thought anything over 25 would be 

 exceptional. 



Mr Cumming— said a lot depended on how 

 old the trees were when tapping was started. In 

 tapping ten-year-old trees never tapped before 

 it was not possible to get more than 10 to 12 cuts 

 to the inch. 



Mr Parkinson— agreed, and added it was 

 not possible to get so many cuts on renewed 

 bark as on trees newly tapped. 



The Chairman— said it seemed that a good 

 average was 20 to 25 cuts. His experience was 

 that it was possible to get more latex with 20 or 

 22 cuts than with 10 or 15. Some Ceylon plan- 

 ters, with whom he had lately spoken, had as- 

 sur«d him that in Ceylon it was no use trying to 

 get more than 15. 



Turning to the next item, the best kind of 

 knives, cups and instruments generally, the 

 Chairman said the written answers favoured the 

 improved farriers' and the gouge except one, 

 the writer of which preferred the Sculfer knife. 



Mr Parkinson— said more depended on 



"the man behind the knife" 



than on the knife itself. 



On the subject of latex cups the Chair- 

 man said he had had answers from eight 

 people ; five were in favour of glass, and three of 

 earthenware, while three of the answers added 

 that no metal cups should be used. 



Mr. Cumming— said he had experimented with 

 aluminium cups. They were expensive, but at 

 the end of six months they were just as good as 

 ever. They were also easily cleaned and light 

 to handle, 



Mr. Parkinson— had found porcelain satis- 

 factory. It cost a good deal more than tin, but 



it was clean and had a longer life. His coolies 

 took round a latex bucket and a water bucket, 

 washed the cup on the spot and hung it up. 

 Latex came well out of a porcelain cup. 



Mr. Duncan — said he employed the same 

 method. He had found glass cups very satis- 

 factory as they were easy to clean. A good many, 

 however, arrived broken. 



Mr. Parkinson— said the percentage of porce- 

 lain cups broken in transit was very small. 



The Chairman — said he thought there was 

 a general agreement that tin cups were not so 

 good as cups made of aluminium, glazed earthen- 

 ware or porcelain. He added that ho supposed 

 most people were agreed that all other vessels 

 should be of the best quality of enamelled iron, 

 as cheap qualities chipped too soon. 



In some remarks on spouts, it was mentioned 

 that aluminium v-shaped spouts had been used. 

 Collection of Latex. 



Discussing the collection of latex, Mr Duncan 

 said he had the latex put straight into enamelled 

 tins, acetic acid was added, and the tins were 

 then placed on trucks and taken straight to 

 the factory, the shaking in transit assisting 

 coagulation. 



The Chairman — said that the main question 

 was whether it was best to coagulate 1 the latex 

 in the field or at the factory. 



Mr. Cumming — said that when latex had to be 

 brought a long way to be coagulated it was not 

 so good as if it was coagulated on the spot. 



After some further discussion the Chairman 

 said it seemed that there was an agreement that 

 the quicker latex could be coagulated, the better. 

 It seemed to him that the meeting favoured co- 

 agulating in the field. 



Mr Fox— then said that he had been running a 

 smoking machine for the last ten days as an ex- 

 periment. At first it had turned out rubber of 

 a variety of colours but latterly the colour had 

 been more even and the process seemed, so far, 

 to be a good one. 



The Chairman— thought smoking was the 

 system of the future and added it would be 

 interesting to see what price the rubber pro- 

 duced by Mr Fox's machine fetched. 



The Coolie s Task. 



The next subject was the coolie's task. 



The Chairman — said it was difficult to fix the 

 task. His written answers gave from 800 to 1,500 

 cuts per day and 250, 275, 300 and 310 trees. 



Mr Fox — said he found his coolies averaged 

 1,600 cuts. The coolies tapped and collected 

 the rubber but did not "scrap.'' 



Mr Parkinson -said the task must vary with 

 the age of the tree. He found an average of 150 

 trees with 8 cuts each making a total of 1,200 cuts, 

 the cooly collecting the latex and bark, washing 

 the cups and carrying the latex to the coagulat- 

 ing sheds. With older trees he found an average 

 of 120 trees with 8 cuts each. The " scrapping" 

 was done by women and children. When doing 

 150 trees the coolie did 75 in the morning, stop- 

 ped, collected the latex ; then another 75, finish- 

 ing from 2 to 2-30 p.m. 



In the course of some further discussion the 

 Chairman said on one estate the tapper did 

 nothing but actually cut the trees. He did not 

 oven place the cups. 



