298 
It will be noticed in Photo No. 26 that a round patch of the 
bark has rotted and will eventually come off. This is due to wet 
weather immediately after tapping, the water having soaked in 
between the bark and wood. When the bark comes off in this 
way the shot hole borer attacks the tree, weakening it, and it is 
likely to blow over when there is a strong wind. Experience has 
been that in the more rainy districts of Ceylon tapping has been 
unsuccessful, killing a great many of the trees. 
The bark of the Ceara rubber tree is thinner than the Hevea 
and has a tendency to tear if the tapping knife is not sharp. This 
makes it harder to tap the Ceara when the same methods of tap- 
ping are used. It is considered more satisfactory on this planta- 
tion to tap as they do rather than use more careful methods as 
the young trees grow up so quickly that as soon as one tree dies 
there is another ready to be tapped in its place. A coolie taps the 
trees, sets out the cups and brings in the latex, setting it out in 
the pans to coagulate and rolls it into biscuits the next day. 
This constitutes a day's work for a coolie, if he brings in enough 
latex to make half a pound of dry rubber. 
The rubber biscuit, after being rolled and washed, is spread on 
cocoanut leaves in the drying room and usually takes about three 
weeks to dry. As a coolie is paid the equivalent of 12 cents gold 
per day, it will be seen that the labor of collecting and making the 
biscuits costs 24 cents per pound. The latex on this plantation is 
coagulated by being mixed with water. Water coagulates Ceara 
latex very quickly. This fact makes it more desirable and more 
profitable to tap Ceara trees in dry weather as the rain coagulates 
the latex on the tree, making a bigger percentage of scrap. Ceara 
latex differs in this respect from the latex of the Hevea tree. 
Where water is used to delay coagulation of the latex from the 
Hevea tree, it has the effect of hastening coagulation with Ceara 
latex. This makes it more difficult, to handle the Ceara latex than 
Hevea. 
On some of the tea plantations that I visited where they have 
a few Ceara trees remaining, they are more careful in tapping and 
use the herringbone method, cutting only a little way into the bark 
and using a pricker. See Photo No. 29. 
The trees are scattered and a clay's work for a tapping coolie 
on these plantations is a third of a pound per day of dry rubber. 
Here the rainfall is large and more care has to be taken in tapping 
to preserve the trees. 
I visited one plantation where they had a grove of 250 Ceara 
trees. This was at an elevation of 3000 feet and where the 
annual rainfall was from 120 to 150 inches. This is the high- 
est elevation at which I saw rubber growing. Twenty-three 
years ago on this plantation, Ceara rubber was planted as shade 
for the tea, but later it was all cut out with the exception 
