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The Supplement to the Tropical Afjrirulfairiftt 



MR. HARVEY'S TREATMENT OF 

 " CASTSLLOA" LATEX. 



Mr. James C. Harvey, one of the pioneers 

 in systematic rubber planting in Mexico, and 

 now manager of an important plantation there, 

 has written to a friend some notes on the 

 treatment of Castilloa rubber, from which, while 

 not meant for publication, the India Rubber 

 World is now able to print some extracts : — 



' ' My idea with regard to the treatment of 

 ' scrap ' is this : Immediately after gathering 

 it in baskets, loosely place it on wire rack.s, 

 through which smoke can penetrate easily, and 

 of course, a proper house must be constructed 

 that will be sufficiently air tight to hold smoke ; 

 then have a little furnace quite detached from 

 said house, and into which the smoke can be 

 driven through a pipe by the action of a very 

 simple revolving fan, thus avoiding any great 

 increase of temperature in the smoke-house, as 

 doubtless you know that a temperature much 

 above 100' F. is apt to cause the rubber to 

 become sticky. 



This is easily proved by exposing any recently 

 prepared scrap or plancha to the action of tbe 

 sun ; then after the scrap is smoked in the man- 

 ner described my idea is that it should be press- 

 ed into blocks of perhaps of 5 or 10 pounds in 

 size. It will be understood that the block is in 

 this manner thoroughly antisepticised through- 

 out, and undoubtedly we must find what material 

 would be best to use in creating this smoke, as 

 certain materials, for a given volume of smoke, 

 contain a higher percentage of creosote than 

 others. 



With regard to the treatment of the plancha — 

 or 1 ought to say, the treatment of the latex in 

 order to prepare plancha — I carried out this year 

 the following method: 



" First, on the receipt of the latex from the 

 field it was mixed with an equal volume of water 

 to facilitate its passage through a com- 

 paratively small or fine meshed sieve, thus 

 excluding all extraneous substance, such 

 as little pieces of bark, chips, moss, 

 lichens and what not. To this 4 additional 

 volumes of water were added, and the wholo 

 placed in a barrel with a faucet exactly level with 

 the base of the barrel, the barrel beirg stood 

 upright. 



"The following morning the latex was found 

 to have arisen to the surface, having been com- 

 pletely separated during the night from the 

 water and other liquids contained in the origi- 

 nal latex. The black water was then drawn off 

 until the latex appeared. Said latex was then 

 in a condition for coagulation, this method being 

 carried out : 



"First, to every 10 gallons of the creamed 

 latex a solution of the vine Known here as 

 'araole' — botanically / pontoea bonanox — is pre- 

 pared, employing about 2 pounds of tho vine, 

 cutting the same into convenient lengths of about 

 one foot, and preferably using the more ligneous 

 portion of the vine — that is, portion of it nearest 

 the ground — and where the bark has assumed a 

 brownish colour. It has been found that this 

 portion of the vine contains a greater percentage 

 of the coagulating agent than the green part. 



"The solutionis then prepared thus : A dozen 

 pieces of the length described are macerated by 

 beating with a mallet or wooden 'truncheon' 

 and rubbed in about 5 gallons of water and then 

 squeezed out, the process occupying but a few 

 minutes time. The resultant liquor is then 

 strained through a very fine sieve and stirred in 

 carefully with the creamed latex. 



"Coagulation, as a rule, will then take place 

 within an hour's time, when the spongy mass 

 can be lifted out carefully and placed upon a 

 table or block and if coagulated in a vessel of 

 about 18 irches in diameter will be found to be 

 of about 3 inches in thickness. With a sharp 

 butcher knife it can then be cut into strips of 

 about \i inches in thickness and can be run 

 backward and forward through an ordinary 

 rubber rolled clothes wringer, over which is 

 suspended'a vessel containing water which is 

 allowed to run in a little stream on the top of 

 the wringer while tho process is being carried on. 



" These strips by the gradual screwing 

 down of the roller can be reduced to about 

 A- inch in thickness. The wringer process should 

 be carried on until there is no further evi- 

 dence of a coloured liquor being expressed from 

 the strips or slabs under operation. 



" It will be seen that two ends have been 

 accomplished by this process, a very clean 

 product, and practically tho minimum of mois- 

 ture left in the slab. The strips or slabs 

 are then thrown into clean water, rinsed and 

 hung up in a dark room to dry, then wo 

 have found it an excellent plan to suspend 

 them on bamboo rods and when reasonably 

 dry, yet still containing perhaps a small por- 

 tion of water, tho identical smoking process 

 as applied to scrap rubber can be then ap- 

 plied, very soon after which the product will 

 be ready for packing. 



" Undoubtedly the application of more 

 elaborate machinery appliances would prove 

 more economical, yet by employing the pro- 

 cess described, two men can easily handle 50 

 pounds of dry rubber per dav." — India Rubber 

 World, July 1. 



THE GSANT RUBBER TREE 

 OF THE EAST. 



I remember giving the sizes of the oldest trees 

 in Ceylon in one of my publications, and placing 

 the credit to that island for being in possession 

 of what I regarded as the biggest Para tret in 

 the East. This was refuted by iM r. Ridley, and 

 I took the opportunity to remind him of the in- 

 cident. I was forthwith conducted to one of 

 the trees planted in 1876 and transplanted in itt; 

 present position in 1880 ; this specimen had 

 thrown oft' three branches at a height of four feet 

 from the ground, and to this fact can be attri- 

 buted the exceptionally large size of the basal 

 region. The trco girthed, at a yard from the 

 ground, no less than 122J inches, and must there- 

 fore stand as the record for the East, if not for 

 the world. I have no records of a Para tree ex- 

 ceeding that size. The tree has been tapped 

 on almost every system known, and has given 

 considerably over 30 lb of rubber. H. VV. 

 —India- Rubber Journal, J une 29. 



