54 



[Feb. 1907. 



GUMS, RESINS, SAPS AND EXUDATIONS. 



Spiral Tapping Thirty Years Ago. 



By Ivor Etherington. 

 Various tapping methods have been tried during recent years in Ceylon and 

 the Malay Peninsula, and in the former country especially the older small V system 

 has given place as a rule to the herring-bone and the newer spiral tapping. It is not 

 much more than a year ago that the modern spiral tapping was brought out in 

 Ceylon, and much interest was taken in the new system, and doubt thrown in some 

 quarters on the wonderful results in yield of rubber obtained by it. The method 

 has now been given a fair trial : and it is generally acknowledged that of the systems 

 tried up to the present it gives the most rapid yield, and does not apparently injure 

 the tree if worked with due caution and if the bark be not unduly rapidly stripped 

 from the trunk, although it may prove injurious to the tree if the cortex is removed 

 too quickly. 



It is of interest, however, and it will no doubt be a matter of surprise to many to 

 learn that this new system of spiral tapping is in reality an old method resuscitated. 



It was, no doubt, an original method with the Ceylon planters who first 

 started it some two years ago ; and who gradually worked it out after considerable 

 experimental work. But the spiral tapping was practised by the Indian rubber- 

 collectors in the rubber regions of Nicaragua more than 30 years ago. The main 

 source of Nicaragua rubber is the CastiUoa elastica Cerv., and the following note on 

 the method of tapping the trees was written over 20 years since. 



; ' The Nicaragua mode of tapping is as follows. The collector ascends the 

 tree by climbers or a ladder as high as possible, and then commences a series of 

 incisions with a sharp machete or axe in one of two ways. One is to make a long 

 vertical cut, with diagonal cuts running into it, as in Brazil. The other is by 

 encircling the tree with spiral cuts at an angle of 45° ; if the tree be large, two such 

 spirals were made, either crossing or paralleled with each other. At the bottom of 

 the trunk an iron spout is driven in and the milk is received into iron pails." 



Here we find a description of spiral tapping almost exactly the same as 

 practised on estates in Ceylon today, but apparently worked on a more drastic 

 scale. The angle of the cut on the trunk is that generally made in Ceylon, 

 but in Nicaragua high tapping is practised, the tapper using a ladder. In 

 Ceylon little scoring of the trunk is done above 6 feet from the ground. 

 The crossing of the cuts does not seem to be of much advantage and where the lines 

 met there would probably be a waste caused by the latex running out of the channel 

 and down the bark. Even the spout at the bottom of the spiral cut is the same as 

 used in Ceylon today. 



In a circular 1899, by the Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Ceylon, 

 spiral tapping for CastiUoa is briefly referred to as follows : "Other methods 

 are to cut spiral groves round the tree for some distance up, or to make a main 

 channel on one side of the stem with lateral cuts leading into it. These methods are 

 almost sure to kill the tree." This is the only reference to spiral tapping for any 

 species of rubber tree that the writer has come across of recent date, and the system 

 was unknown or forgotten when it was resuscitated in Ceylon a couple of years ago. 



This is another instance of the modern rubber planter in the East taking 

 up the methods of working the industry which are practised in the wild rubber 

 regions of the Western Hemisphere. In the November Tropical Agriculturist 

 the Editor pointed out that plantation rubber could probably be improved by 

 more closely imitating the Amazon methods of preparing the raw product. 



