THE RUBBER BOOM.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 18 April 1910, Page 5

THE RUBBER BOOM.

HOW THE PLANT IS CULTIVATED IN CEYLON. It is curious to n °te that the first recorded mention of rubber occurs in connection with the game of ball, fhe historian of the second voyage of Columbus states that the Indians wore in the habit of playing with balls i ' made of the gum of a tree. These, although large, were lighter and bounced better than the wind-balls of Castile. Long confined to America, and particularly Peru, the rubbfr plant has travelled via Kew Gardens to Ceylon and British Malaya, ana now promises to become the mainstu.v of our Eastern tropical colonies and dependencies. This good service to Ceylon was undertaken by Kew at <."e request of the Indian Government, who ordered some 2000 seedlings of the Para rubber tree. Here thev Jar? grown and flourished exceedingly. Some of the original trees are still yielding, and from them thou-anas of cuttings have been distributed ail over the tropics. It is in Ceylon, however, per.iaps more than elsewhere, that many improvements in the cultivation' and collection of rubber have taken plaev?. The primitive method of collecting "".n * vogue until .quite recent years was, to make a scratch in the bark of the rubber tree, and, putting a cocoanut shell on the ground, allow the milk to collect in it after running down the side of the tree. In Ceylon three methods are now :n vogue. Th c spiral, the half-herring-bone, and the herringbone. The trees are carefully sedected for tapping, according to age and girth, the planter, it is averred, being able to distinguish as between tree and tree as an expert herdsman does with his flock. Generally speaking, the tree should be five years old and twenty inches m girth before "tapping." The tapping is performed by making a cut in the outer bark of the tree, beginning from the base upwards. At the base a small spout is placed, a n d under thy--a metal cup with a little water in it ' to keep the latex or juice moist. The spiral cut is usually continued upwards to a height of six feet above the ground. In some cases» howevc., the cut is continued to a length of 10 and 15 feet. Down this channel the latex runs into the waiting cup, the natives regularly collecting it. Wjen all the latex has been collected from the tree, the wound in the bark is i<u ~ lowed to heal, a rest of two year being generally given. The new spinl is then cut in the reverse way. The "herringbone" cut is made by cutting, a straight shallow channel *n the bark some seven feet long, and from this at regular intervals crosscuts are made at an angle of 45 degrees, and pointing upwards. The latex is thus conducted down to the ■central channel, and so to the receptacle at the base of the tree. The half-herringbone cut, as it name indicates, employs cuts on one side oniy of the central channel. Great cave has to be exercised in cutting the bark, as, if the cut is too deep, the inner wood of the tree is damaged and rendered useless for further production. So *exipert, however, are the Singhalese coolies, A hat less than 2 per cent of such caseß occur in the island. The latex from the little cups is then collected dn white enamelled mails and taken to th e factory, where it is nassed through rollers, after semi-coagulation, an<T passes out jn sheets of cre P e or laCe TuW)er ' re W for shipment to th e manufacturers < f Europe, to be made into articles jn<r every point of life, from the rub-ber-tube" of the v feeding-bottle of childhood to the tyres on a funeral hearse.