Oct. 190(5.] 



Correspondence. 



RUBBER TAPPING METHODS. 



Dear Sir,— The Tropical Agriculturist for September has done me the 

 honour of publishing my letter and diagram of 18th August on the above subject, 

 and its learned Editor has condescended to "sit on" me. He says in a footnote :— 

 "The full spiral leaves L. F. C. untapped." With all due respect to constituted 

 authority, I say it does not, as he will see if he folds the diagram into a cylinder till 

 A. 0. and B. D. coincide, or if he will look at a tree that has been completely spirally 

 tapped. But, ne sutor ultra crepidam, my apology is due for the unscientific state- 

 ment, which I must have cribbed out of our Rubber Handbook, that " the latex cells 

 have the power of sealing themselves up." Like the genial Government Agent, CP., 

 I now know that "the latex accumulates in other cells near by" — so near, that it 

 takes a high-power microscope to see it. And as a mere practical tapper, who does 

 not go about his work armed with even a magnifier, perhaps I may be forgiven this 

 slip. What my eye sees is the whole of the last tapping line sealed up and dry, as it 

 were, and a thin paring cut starts the flow of latex again all along the line. 



Now, to continue the subject matter of my previous letter. During the 

 whole time of the Rubber Exhibition I was present in a subordinate capacity and met 

 a great many rubber planter friends, who nearly all told me "the spiral is doomed "; 

 but not one of them could give me a valid reason for saying so. Some reasons given 

 for holding these views were :— (1) The general opinion among rubber men, (2) It is 

 too drastic, (3) The Controller's figures prove it is more wasteful of bark than the 

 herring bone system, and (4) The exploded one of ringing the tree. 



Well, (1) general opinion is sometimes proved to be wrong. In this case it 

 seems to have been formed by a bell-wether of the rubber flock having plunged 

 through the hedge and the young rams are following gaily through the hole, asking 

 no questions ! (2) Any system of tapping may be made too drastic ; and that is 

 precisely what has been done in the case of the spiral. The arbitrary rule of 1 foot- 

 spacing has been followed to the letter, and spirals and herring-bones have been 

 clapped on to the trees alike, forgetful of the fact that the former means double the 

 length of tapping lines of the latter on the trees and therefore, presumably, double 

 the strain on the latter. 



Look at the medals commemorative of awards of the Rubber Exhibition. 

 The obverse is a reproduction of a Hevea monarch. The unfortunate monarch is 

 now carrying 8 lines of spiral tapping aggregating some 56 lineal feet, — not that he 

 could not carry three times the amount if reasonably spiead over his magnificent 

 limbs, but this is all clapped on within six feet of the ground. Please note that if he 

 had been " herring-boned " he would have been carrying only half of this, viz., 28 feet. 

 Ninety percent of his lesser brethren under tapping are similarly spirally over- 

 tapped. And (3) it is from the yields of these trees that the Controller of the 

 Experiment Gardens has drawn his data to compare with those of the herring-bone 

 system, manifestly an unfair comparison, apart from the question of the varying 

 angles of cut which I discussed before, and nobody has, so far, controverted. To 

 make a fair comparison, either the alternate lines of the spiral should not have been 

 cut, or the herring-bone should have been cut on both sides of the tree. 



This, of course, is preposterous and mere heresy to the advocates of the 

 herring-bone system ; the other side of the tree is left intact so that there may be 

 no question of the uninterrupted flow of sap. Exactly so : and when the first side 



