THE: TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [June 2, 1902. 
take in as many trees as possible in each path, and 
to make all the paths converge to a certain spot, 
where he puts ap his " bariica," or curing station. 
This done, and having collected a supply o£ the old 
nuts of the inaja (Maximiliana regia) or similar oily 
palm nuts, he is ready to commence operations on 
the first fine day. There is some diversity in the 
manner of taking the rubber latex in the Amazon 
Valley. In some districts they prepare long strips 
from the inner pith of the foot-stalk of the leaf of 
the inaja or of the bacaha palm. These are tacked 
obliquely round the stem of the trees, with sharpened 
pieces split out of hard covering of the same leaf 
stalks. These strips, being smeared on the inside 
with wet clay, form a channel for collecting and 
oonducting the latex milk into the cup placed to 
receive it. In the other method, which I consider 
the better, the cups are put on in a ring round the 
trunk, usually a span apart. Three cuts about li 
in. long are made in the bark with a small axe. In 
this way the number of cups is proportioned to the 
size of the tree. Tin cups are used. They are 
made slightly concave on one side in order to fit 
the convexity of the tree trunk. They are attached 
to the tree by the use of a piece of the ball of 
kneaded clay, which each collector carries in his 
bag. The tapping always begins as soon as there is 
light enough in the forest path to see by. One 
man is usually apportioned to each path, containing 
say, 100 treea. When he has cupped his trees he 
Bits down at the end of the path for half an hour 
or BO, but aa soon as he sees that the tree last 
tapped has ceasod to drip the milk, he starts at a 
trot on the back tfftok, detaching and emptying 
the cups into his calabash as quickly as possible. 
Speed throughout is a great object, as the milk 
latex speedily coagulates, and then can only be sold 
on the market for an inferior price, as serwambi, as 
compared to that obtained for that which has been 
smoke-cured. When the men arrive at the central 
hut from their diSerent converging paths they each 
empty their quantum of the latex taken for the 
morning's work into one of the large Indian natiye 
earthenware pans, usually used as a receptacle. 
Care is taken to squeeze out with the hands all of 
the already coagulated curd-like masses. These ara 
thrown on one side to be made up into balla. 
Earthen pota in form of miniature kilns are placed 
over small fires, and the " siringero " sits down to 
the really tedious part of his business. He drops 
a handful or so of the oily palm nuts down the 
narrow neck of the kiln, and forthwith arises a 
dense smoke. Taking a wooden mould— like an 
Rce of spade* in form — and holding it over the pan, 
he pours some of the latex over it in a thin film 
keeping it turned, so that it shall not run off 
before he succeeds in setting it to an even surface, 
which it soon does as it is passed backward and 
forward through the column of smoke. This is con- 
tinued, one coating after another, until he has 
finished the day's supply of rubber-milk. He then 
sticks his momld up in the thatch of the roof of 
the shed for the repetition of the process next day, 
and until he finds the thickness of the biscuit 
makes the mould unwieldly to handle, when it is 
cut down one side, slipped off, and stored, This 
is the native method, which can without doubt be 
improved upon under conditions of systematic cul- 
tivation. 
But aa all the stock of plants or seed available 
for the planting and cultivation of this tree in the 
Eastern tropics are and will be derived from 
direct lineal descendants of some or other of 
those 7,000 odd originally introduced by me at the 
instance of the Government of India* in 1876-77, it 
may be well if it be recollected that their exact 
place of origin was in 3deg. of south latitude, and to 
remember their natural conditions there. This the 
more so since a very general error seems to have 
obtained that swampy or wet lands are the fitting 
locality for the J/wvra. This would seem to have 
arisen in that the " explorer " of a few years' ex- 
perience would have some of these trees pointed 
out to him (naturally in answer to enquiries) grow- 
ing scattered along the wet margins in going up the 
lower Amazon or tributaries, whereas the true 
forests o£ the " Para " Indian rubber tree lie 
back on the highlands, and those commonly seen by 
the enquiring traveller are but ill-grown trees which 
have sprang up from seeds brought down by freshets 
from the interior. 
As a matter of fact, the whole of the Hcevia 
which I procured for the Government of India were the 
produce of large-grown trees in the forest covering 
the broad plateaux dividing the Tapajos from the 
Madeira rivers. The soil of these well-drained, 
wide-extending, forest-covered tablelands is a stiff 
soil, not remarkably rich, but deep and uniform in 
character. The Hrf via found growing in these unbroken 
forests rival all but the largest of the trees therein, 
attaining to a circumference of 10 ft. to 12 ft. in the 
bole. These forest plains, having all the character of 
widespread tablelands, occupy the space betwixt the 
great arterial river systems of the Amazon, and pre- 
sent an escarped face, which follows, at greater or 
less distance, and abuts steeply on the igapo or fear/a* 
— I.e., the marginal river plains— subject to inunda- 
tion^by the annual rise of the great river. So thorough 
is the drainage of this highland that the people who 
annually penetrate into these forests for the season's 
working of the rubber have to utilise certain liana* 
(water-bearing vines) for their water supply, since 
none is to be obtained by surface- well-sinking, in spite 
of the heavy rainfall during great part of the year. 
The Hecvia is much more amenable, better adapted 
for systematic cultivation, planting, and working 
than any other of the rubber-yielding trees with 
which I am acquainted — for instance, the Ficus tUsHca 
of the Eastern tropics or the Ficus rerjia of New 
Guinea, and probably of Malaya ; the various species 
of jungle rubber yhies of the East and of New 
Guinea and tropical Africa ; and, to a less degree, the 
Castilloa and Ctara of tropical America. The remark 
ably shapely cylindrical form of the lower trunk 
(the workable part of the tree) from the ground 
upward renders it singularly adapted to regular 
extraction of the rubber latex, and although the 
latex of the Hceuia does not appear to lend itself to 
the process of separation by centrifugal separating 
machines, as do the Castilloas of Guatemala aed 
Southern Mexico, the "Para" rubber, produced by a 
simple smoke process which has been devised, alwayi 
commands the best market price. 
In New Guinea I was in 1894 first to discover a vine 
growing in the forest there which produces a 
very fine quality of Indian rubber. There is also a 
large forest tree, native of these forests, (a specie" of 
Jicus) which yields a good class of rubber in quantity. 
None of these, however, being so suited (so amenable) 
to cultivation in plantation as the " Para," it is much 
to be recommended that cultivation of the HmJia be 
encouraged in that late and undeveloped possession 
of the British Empire, Now that it has been esta- 
blished in the E»st, there shouM be no great 
difaculty in bringing it down from Singapore ; and I 
have myself seen large tracts of forest and jungle 
land in New Guinea which are admirably adapted for 
the planting of this, the premier rubber-producing 
tree. 
The conditions required for the successful and pro 
fitable cultivation Para {Hxvia) Indian rubber are 
in my opinion, that it be regarded aa a plantation 
— a cultivated product — rather than as one to be planted 
with view of being widely disseminated, under canopy, 
of an area covered by primitive standing forest. This 
opinion, formed at the time of the original introduc- 
tion of the Hcevia to cultivation at the instance of the 
Government of India in 1876, has been strengthened 
by subsequent years of planting experience ; and I 
am convinced that any advice for the setting out of 
the Hcevia rubber.tree as a self-disseminating forest 
product — planting it out under canopy thiouzb 
wide areas of existing forests or jungle— will oe 
♦ 
