206 TlMEHRI. 
Then there are the charcoal-burners, before whose 
axes every hard-wood tree falls. The forest over which 
their depredations extend is a sorry sight ; all the seed- 
lings of the hard-wood are choked by the soft-wood 
growth which cumbers the ground. 
Shingle-splitting is chiefly confined to Portuguese ; 
and as their work is done on mature wallaba no 
great harm is done. But they sometimes combine char- 
coal-burning with shingle-splitting, and then they are 
most destructive. 
A few proprietors of sugar-estates take out grants for 
cutting wood for fuel, and when this is the case every- 
thing falls before the axe. What are known as second- 
growths along reaches of the river are due to this 
destruction of the original forest. 
From all accounts balata-bleeding is an industry 
which is spreading to a considerable extent, and 
by some it is said to leave havoc in its track ; for the 
trees exhausted of the sap are attacked and killed by 
dry rot. This may be so, and the matured balata or 
bullet-tree may be threatened with extinction. But it 
is a question whether such extinction must not be looked 
upon as compensated by the value of the balata-milkf ; 
in other words the balata juice may be of quite as much 
value as the entire tree if placed in the market as timber. 
And whether the trees are milked or felled, the saplings 
will in due time replace the old trees. 
Much good might be done by regulating the 
licenced wood-cutters, binding them not to exhaust the 
f The writer has evidently overlooked the easily demonstrated fact 
that balata-milk may be perfectly easily extracted without felling or 
in any way permanently injuring the tree.— Ed. 
