METHODS OF TAPPING RUBBER TREES AND 
COLLECTING LATEX 
A visit of inspection which I recently paid to the various rub- 
ber plantations in the Federated Malay States, shewed me in a way 
that figure and statistics could not have done the amount of labour 
and capital that has been spent in (his industry, and brought very 
vividly home to me the great value of the plantations to the country 
and gave me some slight idea of the wealth of return immediately 
coming to those who have interests in these estates. But it also 
demonstrated the state, of chaos that exists in all that concerns the 
practical harvesting of the rubber. That this should be so is inevit- 
able, and at it no surprise can be felt when it is remembered that 
as an agricultural industry rubber growing is in its infancy, and 
that there is no accumulated experience gained by planters in the 
past to serve as guide. It is true that different experiments on a 
small scale have been made, and small amounts of rubber turned 
out and exported, but no large estate has yet been thoroughly tap- 
ped and no method at present in use has been put to the test of 
practical applicability in a systematic manner to a large estate of, 
sav, i,000 acres. I propose to review the methods that have been 
put forward and which have in a mild and tentative manner been 
adopted, and to endeavour in a scientific manner to critically ex- 
amine the probability of their success on a large scale and to give: 
some scheme which as the result of this analysis may be adopted. 
In the .first place the aim of all and on this one and only point, is 
there anything like full agreement, is to make money, that is to 
say to obtain the greatest possible return of rubber with the least 
possible expenditure, without doing damage to the trees, without 
killing the goose that is to lay the golden eggs. Each system of 
tapping therefore, must be looked at from the three points of view, 
namely the return of rubber, the cost of working and the probable 
damage to the trees, as sources of rubber. Aesthetic and senti- 
mental considerations can have no place. 
The first and a simple system is that of single cuts, each being a 
few inches long, and obliquely set. The inclination being from 20° 
to 30° to the horizontal. At the lower end of each cut, a cup is fixed 
by being pushed into the bark, the portion of the bark thus, raised 
acting as a lip over which the latex trickles into the cups. 
On successive or on alternate days the lower face of the cut is 
pared off and the latex caused again to How. This process, con- 
tinued for about fifteen times of reopening, has with individual trees 
yielded a large returri of rubber per tree — some claim that the 
largest returns have been obtained in this way. It is also claimed 
that the scars heal quickly. That the returns per length of cut 
surface are any greater with this method than with any other I very 
much doubt. Experiments made with a few trees or with small 
sets of trees are cerLainly of value, but in so far as they are not 
carried out under the same conditions of cooly labour and rate of 
working as would obtain on a large estate in actual practice must 
