HOW RUBBER IS GROWN.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIV, Issue 3, 5 January 1910, Page 3

HOW RUBBER IS GROWN.

The cultivation and preparation of rubber is the subject of an attractively illustrated article in the October number of the Magazine of Commerce. In Brazil the trees are tapped during the dry season, which varies in different districts. The rubber collectors, or "seringuieros," search the forests for suitable trees, which should not be less than about two feet in girth. incision is tnade in the bark with a special tool, and a receptacle fastened immediately be-^ neath. The latex begins to run Vat once, and is caught. A number of cuts are made in each tree, a cup fastened under.each, arid allowed to remain for a few hours.

At the end of this time the flow of latex has ceased, and the contents of all the little cups are transferred to a larger vessel. The next' step is to convert the still liquid latex into solid rubber. A fire is lighted, and on it are placed nuts of various species of palms. These produce a dense smoke, containing acetic acid and creosote, which rapidly coagulates any latex exposed -t<> it. A kind of paddle is dipped in the latex, and held in the smoke. The rubber coagulates, forming 4 thin layer on the paddle, ;whjch is.then dipped into th£ lat&x and agairi smoked. Another layer is deposited on the first, and the'process is continued until a sufficiently large mass of solid rubber has been collected on the paddle. It is then removed, and is ready for sale arid export. Steps have been taken to establish the Para rubber tree as a cultivated plant in, various parts of the world, especially in Ceylon ,and British Malaya, where the most important .results hare been attained. In 1876 Ceylon received from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; some 2000 seedlings of this valuable plant.

A statement that the cigarette habit is fast, being replaced by a general use of cigars in fashionable feminine circles in England is not confirmed by cigar merchants in the West End of London. The majority of them ridicule the idea that cigar-smoking either is or ever will be general among women, as they are not fitted constitutionally for the practice. One firm which supplies many hundred women customers in the West End with cigarettes would own to only three women who bought cigars regularly, and they would not undertake to say that the women actually smoked them themselves. Another noted cigar firm knew of only two women customers who admittedly smoked cigars. A brand most favoured by women smokers is a miniature cigar, about 2hm. m long, and a little thicker than a cigarette. One- woman orders regularly 100 of those a month. Inquiries elicited the fact that one firm numbers among its women customers a pipe-smoker. She is mid file-aged, and has discarded cigarettes in favour of a briar or ordinprv size nnd make. There seems little doubt: that ni«;nr~ ette-smoking is lavr.iolv on the "increase amoji.o; \y<>m"i) in the .^o-naJIo-f] "smart sot," flm cifwo^p .•■ flS f j,, drr^and boinr; of tV". V '■ Tnrv-li tobacco.