Balata and the Balata Industry. 223 
The touckpong is tapped by the collectors on the 
Canje in the same way they tap the bullet-tree. The 
milk is usually mixed by them with the balata milk, or if 
sold separately it is mixed by the agents, who make no 
distinction in the different kinds of milk. A good deal 
ot the rubber appears to be collected in the Pomeroon 
in the way I first described, by allowing it to dry in tears 
on the trees, but it is sold with the balata, and is not re- 
cognised by collectors, exporters, or purchasers in Eng- 
land as a new and distinct rubber. It would pay exporters 
to keep it separate, and endeavour to obtain for it this 
recognition. Some of the largest trees I saw on the Canje 
— trees with trunks seventy to eighty feet long or more, 
and three to four feet in diameter — were in an advanced 
state of decay from over tapping ; and all the trees I 
came across of it had been tapped. From a sample I 
sent home last year to be tested, touckpong rubber was 
very favourably spoken of as to quality, and estimated 
as worth from 2/3 to 2/6 per lb., which is the highest 
estimated value that has been given by experts for any of 
the substances, balata or india-rubber, produced by this 
colony. 
Bartaballi is one of the best known native trees, but 
it has not hitherto been recognised as one of the most 
prolific of the caoutchouc trees of the country. It is 
medium sized, squaring for timber up to twenty inches, 
and attaining a height of eighty to one hundred feet. 
The bark is smooth and rather thin, being not more than 
a \ to Jrd of an inch thick ; and its yield of milk is quite 
as copious in proportion to size as that of the bullet-tree. 
Wherever met with by the collectors, the tree is tapped 
and the milk is incorporated with the balata milk. They 
