S8r 
be accepted with reserve, and until tests have been made on a 1 
estate over a considerable area by estate coolies I consider the 
increased returns shewn by this system to be not proved. 
There are on the other hand very real objections to this method. 
In the first place the cuts are scattered and irregular and while no 
damage is done to the tree itself, yet the bark is greatly roughen* d 
and the tapping surface rendered irregular and more difficult to 
work a second time. From my own observation, I am inclined to 
believe that the gaping of the bark produced by a first cut is out of 
all proportion to the material removed. It is rather like the effe< t 
of the first cut into a roast leg of mutton. Subsequent shaving and 
reopening widens the gape by the amount removed and by no more 
Consequently a disjointed and scattered series ol short cuts leans 
to a rough and scarred bark on which is difficult to work. But a 
second and more important objection is the number of cups required 
for such a style of tapping. Ten cups to a moderate sized tree — -say 
28 inches girth at 3 feet from the base, is a very modest allowance. 
It only requires a simple multiplication sum to shew that with 1,000 
acres of 120 trees to the acre, and the plantation tapped entirely 
twice a year, each cut being reopened fifteen times, nearly 100,000 
cups would be required daily, or taking each cup as weighing about 
one ounce, then over two tons of cups would be carried out and 
used every day. The labour of washing and drying the waste of 
latex as scrap from the cups to say nothing of the wear and tear 
which is excessive, when they have to be forced into the bark 
of the tree in fixing, require it to be very clearly and definitely 
established that a superior yield of rubber results from this system 
of tapping if it is not to be entirely condemned. It certainly is 
not a system, which in the present state of our knowledge can be 
recommended. 
Another system of tapping which 1 understand was first tried 
in Ceylon is to make single cuts in such a position that the end 
of one is two or three inches vertically above the beginning of 
the second. These two cuts are then connected by a narrow ver- 
tical cut. 
The way in which this system has been evolved, is, 1 think easy to 
see. The number of cups required with 'single cuts and the labour 
involved in their use had, even with small estates, become consider- 
able, and evidently by connecting the* cuts in pairs the number of 
' cups required would be halved. But if the intention be to econo- 
mise cups and labour, this system does not go far enough, and in 
any case it is difficult to see the advantage of this fancy zig-zag cut 
over a single straight cut extending from the commencement of the 
first to the end of the second cut. 
This system has, I consider nothing to commend it, and in the 
-irregular scarring of the bark and difficulty in fitting in new cuts on 
subsequent occasions on the areas untapped, is a special difficulty. 
A third system is that known as V putting, and the name explains 
the arrangement perlcclly. 1’he original cuts arc reopened from 
to 
