THE HEVEA RUBBER TREE IN THE AMAZON VALLEY 29 
Another source of loss is in the scrap which clings to the cups, which 
are never clean when the latex flows into them. In the beginning 
they are made with flat bottoms, and the angle formed by side and 
bottom can not be kept clean. Rubber adheres here, and on its 
surface more rubber coagulates. The cups are thinly plated and soon 
rust, which causes rubber to cling to the whole surface. The serin- 
gueiro pours the latex from the cup, then cleans the inside of the cup 
with a stroke of his finger. The dirtiness of the cups not only causes 
the loss of the rubber which sticks to them but initiates coagulation 
in the whole mass of latex in the cup. Where the quantity of latex 
is small the coagulation may be completed before collection; in 
other cases it is only a fruitful source of lumps, which must be classed 
as sernamby and sold for almost nothing. 
There is no question that the cups should be kept clean. Porcelain 
cups so widely used in the East, though easy to keep clean, are not 
applicable to the Amazonian wilderness. They 
are too expensive and too difficult to trans- 
port for use there. Furthermore, their use 
would necessitate the use of cup hangers, 
which would be an impossibility where a 
number of cups are used on each tree. Then, 
when it is considered that each seringueiro 
keeps two or three estradas in tapping at the 
same time, it is apparent that the outlay re- 
quired for better cups and for cup hangers is 
entirely out of the question. 
A new type of cup could be made, however, 
which need not be more expensive than those 
now in use. Such a cup should be seamless 
and should have a round bottom and a 
smooth surface to make it easy to keep clean. The up, a, is thrust into the 
The metal should be heavy enough to prevent &^ P M £d e^Kf 
battering, and since this would make it im- 3£&fffc?*S, 1, ff&££ 
possible to bend the edge to iorm a lip to be and the side of the cup, c, is 
thrust into the bark, the rim of the cup tti s d ° ^whSffcS^ 
should bear a lip with an edge for thrusting seamless and is stamped from 
. , fl, . ,. -n i one piece of metal 
into the tree. lhis lip will also serve as a 
spout for the latex. Figure 9 gives the writer's idea of the appear- 
ance of such a cup. 
Akers (1) estimated that 10 per cent of all the rubber taken from 
the trees is lost. The writer would go farther, estimating that 15 per 
cent of the rubber is completely lost and another 10 per cent saved 
only as sernamby. Such waste is inconceivable to the rubber planter. 
There are thousands of tons of rubber in the Amazon basin in the 
form of bark scrap and earth rubber. Most of this could have been 
saved by slight and inexpensive changes in methods and by the 
exercise of more thought and care. 
WASTEFUL AND INJURIOUS TAPPING 
That the method of tapping in use at present is injurious in the 
extreme has been pointed out somewhat insistently. It is necessary 
to consider a better method to substitute for it. The cut which a 
machadinho makes is nearly as well adapted to running the latex 
down the trunk as into a cup. There are methods which do not allow 
that and that at the same time do a great deal less injury to the tree. 
