47^ 
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 inch 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 trees. When he has cupped his trees he sits down at the end 
of the path for half an hour or so, but as soon as he sees that the 
tree last tapped has ceased to drip the milk, he starts at a trot on 
the back track, 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 he sold on the 
market for an inferior price, as servvatnbi, as compared to the ob- 
tained for that which has been smoke-cured. When the men arrive 
at the central hut from their different converging paths they each 
empty their quantum of the latex taken for the mornings work into 
one of the large Indian native earthernwaLre pans, usually used as 
a receptacle. Care is taken to squeeze out with the hands all of 
the already coagulated curd-like masses. These are thrown on one 
side to be made up into balls. Earthen pots in form of miniature 
kilns are placed over small fires, and the “siringero ” sits down to 
the really tedious part of his business, lie drops a handful or so 
of the oily palm nuts down the narrow neck of the kiln, and forth- 
with arises a dense smoke, 'baking a wooden mould like an ace 
of spades 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 passed backward and forward through the column of 
smoke. This is continued one coating after another, until he has 
finished the day’s supply of rubber-milk. He then sticks his mould 
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 un wieldly to handle, when it is cut down one side, 
slipped off, and stored. This is the native method, which can with- 
out doubt be improved upon under conditions of systematic cultiva- 
tion. 
But as 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 Govern- 
ment of India in 1876-77, it may be well if it be recollected that 
their exact place of origin was in 3 deg. 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 Hevea. This would seem to 
have arisen in that the “ explorer” of a few years* experience would 
have some of these trees pointed out to him (naturally in answer to 
