Balata and the Balata Industry. 199 
Once there, the collector takes his coil of calabashes and 
lays a row of them along on each side. Two are re- 
quired for every foot length of trunk, so that eighty or a 
hundred are necessary for a single tree. This done, he 
lightly shaves the surface of the trunk over with his 
cutlass to remove all loose material, then begins to ring 
the bark in parallel transverse lines at intervals about a 
foot apart. He stands with his back to the trunk and cuts 
the channel upwards from the ground, then placing the 
calabash where the milk begins to drop on the ground, 
he turns and completes the cut to the top. He works 
along one side of the trunk first, then goes to the other 
and proceeds in like manner. The operation takes from 
half to three quarters of an hour, and the milks drips 
about an hour. Sometimes the vertical lines on the two 
sides instead of being continuous when completed, are 
made to alternate one with another. The gutters are not 
completely annular for there is a space twelve to eighteen 
inches wide underneath, upon which the tree is resting, 
which of course cannot be reached to be tapped and the 
milk of which, about one-fourth of the whole, is conse- 
quently lost. When collected, each calabash contains 
about a quarter of a pint of milk, more or less according to 
the character of the tree. A particularly good tree will 
produce a tumbler full in each. A trunk forty feet long that 
would square twelve to fifteen inches, would give about two 
gallons of milk. The largest and best yielding trees cut 
in a good season give as much as four or five gallons.* 
* An average good-sized tree will yield 20 lbs. of the dried gum, and 
one tree I had tapped in this way yielded 50 lbs. — J. V. Day in Pro- 
ceedings of the Scientific Association of Trinidad, December, 1873. [50 lbs. 
is equal to 10 gallons of milk.] 
