Dec 100(5 ] ^ Saps and Exudations. 



RENEWAL OF BARK, 



Mr. Ryan :— Are you in favour of dressing the bark of the trees with any 

 preservatives ? 



Mr, Wright :— I do not see why you should do so. In special cases it might 

 be useful. 



Remarking upon the state of the bark, Mr. Wright said they saw there a 

 sample of the work done by the Sinhalese cooly. They would probably see one or 

 two cases where he had cut into the cambium, but he did not think there were many. 

 He would like to know how it compared with work in the Federated Malay States. 



Mr. Dove :— It is very good work. 



Mr. Parkinson :— Very good, indeed. 



Mr. Devitt cut into the bark of a tree which had been tapped daily and 

 found that the renewed bark measured | of-an-inch. 



Mr. Wright ;— That is very interesting. That has taken 12 months to this 

 date to develop. 



The party then examined trees which had been tapped on alternate days, 

 and Mr. Wright said they Avould see that they still had approximately one-third 

 of the original bark, which was the mother of all rubber, left after obtaining 12 lb. 

 8 oz. of rubber, against 11 lb. in 270 tappings in the other trees. Further, here they 

 only tapped 136 times agaiust 270 in the other case, so that the cost of labour was 

 one-half. He thought personally that Avas the most interesting result they had 

 obtained up to the present. He did not know whether the labour difficulty would 

 permit them to tap on alternate days. Would it be possible ? 



Mr. Parkinson :— Yes. 



Mr. Wright added that they had made experiments in tapping once a week 

 and once a month. Coming to the trees which had been tapped once a week, he said 

 from 44 tappings they had obtained an average of 3 lbs. 13 oz. per tree. Not on a 

 single occasion did they obtain latex they could not coagulate. 



On arriving at the trees that had been tapped once a month, Mr. Wright 

 said they had tapped on eleven occasions aud got 10 ounces of rubber, or | lb. of 

 rubber per tree approximately. They had now seen the trees tapped from once a day 

 to once a month. If Mr. Parkinson's assertion was applicable to Ceylon, that they 

 could tap on alternate days, the prospects were very favourable. These trees showed 

 what they might expect, tapping at the rate of once per month. They might go on 

 for ten or twelve years. 



landolphia rubber vines. 



Mr. Wright then took the visitors to see the Landolphia rubber creepers 

 growing in considerable abundance in a part of the ground aud spreading their vines 

 all over the neighbourhood. On a thick part of one of the vines being cut, latex 

 flowed more freely even than iu Para rubber and coagulated rapidly. 



Mr. Wright remarked that Landolphias grew only among jungle trees. 

 They must have some tree upon which it could climb. The best method of extract- 

 ing the latex was probably maceration. Those specimens were probably fifteen 

 years old. The bark was fairly thick, and the rubber was very good in quality. 



Mr. ProudlouK said he got excellent rubber from it at Nellamore in 1903. 

 Mr. Wright :— Have you any idea of the rubber contained, say, in a cwt. of 



bark? 



Mr. Proudlock .—I have the results tabulated. The percentage is very high— I 

 believe from seven to eight per cent, 



