The Canton advocate. [volume] (Canton, D.T. [S.D.]) 1877-1897, 1884-05-22
[ndia-ruOn.rln Brazil.

In the early morning men and women
come with baskets of clay cups on their
backs, ard little hatchcts to cash the
trees. Where the white milk drips
down from the cash they stick their
cups on the trunk with daubs of clay,
moulded so as to catch the whole flow.
If the tree is \ large one, four or five
gashes nav be cut in circle around
the trunk. On the next day other gasnes
arc made little below these. and so on
until the rows reach the ground. BY
eleven o'clock the flow of milk has
ceased, and the SeringueiroS come to
collect the contents of the cups in Gala
bash jugs. A Gill or so is the utmost
yield from each tree. and single gath
erel may attend to a hundred and
twenty or more. wading always through
these dark marshes and paying dearly
for his profit in fever and weakness.
Cur n9a1nc{Ucd hostess has brought in
her days gathering-a calabash full OF
the white liquid, in appearance pre-
cisely like milk. If left in this condi
ton it coagulatcs after while, and
forms an inferior whitish gum. To
make the black rubber of commerce,
the milk must 90 through peculiar
process of manufacture, for which our
guide has been preparing. Over a
smouldering fire, fed with hard nuts of
the tucuna palm, he places kind Of
clay chimney, like wide-mouthed,
bottomless jug; through this boiao the
thick smoke pours in a constant stream.
Now he takes his mould-in this case
q wooden one, like round-bladed
paddle-washcs it with the milk, and
holds it over the smoke until the liquid
coagulates. Then another coat is add
ed, only now, as the wood is heated.
the milk coagulates faster. 1t may
take the gatherings,o of two or three days
to cover the mould thickly enough.
Then the rubber is still dull white, but
in short time it turns brown, and
finally almost black, as it is sent to the
market
The mass is cut from the paddle and
sold to traders in the village. Bottles
are sometimes made by moulding the
rubber over clay ball, which is then
broken up and removed. Our old
fashioned rubber shoes used to be made
in this way. Twenty million pounds of
rubber, valued vt S6,0OO,O00, are annu-
ally exported from Para in the dry
season; many thousand people are en-
gagged in gathering it. But the business
altogether is ruinous one for the prov
ince, as Brazilians themselves are fully
aware. The seringueiro, who gains
two or three dollars for single days
gathering, has enough, as life goes
here, to keep him in idleness for a
week; and when his money is spent, he
can draw again on his ever ready
bank.
The present wasteful system is spoken
of as follows: The half wild seringueiros
will 60 on submitting to impositions
and dying here in the swamps, until
Brazilians learn that by purchasing this
land from the government and planting
it in rubber trees they can insure vastly
larger profits. and do away with the
evils of the present system. 1t is what
must eventually be done. The rubber
gatherers, in their eagerness to secure
large harvests, have already killed an
immense number of trees about the
Para estuary; they have been obliged
to penetrate farther and farther into
the forest, to the Tocantins, Madeira,
Purus, Rio Negro, and eventually even
these regions must be exhausted, unless
they are protected in some way. The
trees, properly planted and cared for,
will yield well in fifteen years, and, OF
course, the cost of gathering would be
vastly reduced in !. compact plantation;
half the present labor Of the rubber col
lector consists in his long tramps
through the swampy forest. Dominica
Diat