The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1894-04-21
FROM THE RUBBER TREE
HOW THE MILK IS GATHERED
BY HULEROS. Il
The Bark Is Gashed in Many Places and
the Liquid Rubber Gushes Out-This
Method Destroys the Tree in Two Sea-
sons-Hardened Rubber.

proposed to accompany the rub
Der gatherer on his rounds, and in q
few minutes we were out of sight
| and sound of camp, in a wild that
| was literally trackless, writes Ed
ward W. Perry in Outing, in an arti-
Gle on how elastic gum is gathered
in Mosquitea. Soon we came to
rubber tree, it's smooth gray trunk
rising slender and branches forty
feet. Theyouth threw his burden to
the ground, and looked about until
he found thicket of cariso, with
stalks two inches in diameter and
perhaps forty feet long. i
| The walls Of this BAN 900 are
scarcely more than an eighth of an
| inch in thickness, and the Joints,
fully grown, are some two feet long.
They grow in thick clusters, fre-
| quently so dense that no animal can
| pass between the stalks. Arcbing
over they often droop until the tops
sweep the ground, and the beauti-
| fully delicate foliage is so abundant
as to form an apparently solid bank
of green.
With blow of his machete the
hulero cut down one of these and
Clipped off three or four of the
joints, each forming long tube
closed at each end. With these we
returned to the rubber tree.
He then made a small loop of one
end of the rope we brought with US,
and of the other end large loop
passing round both the tree and his
own body. He put both feet through
the smaller loop, SO that his bare
soles grasped the smooth gray bark,
the rope about his ankles serving as
fulcrums to give his feet tight hold.
Then he threw the upper loop we'll
up the tree trunk, leaned back, and
brought his feet up till they grasped
the trunk eighteen inches or so from
the ground.
! With quick motion, he brought
his body near the trunk, and at the
same time threw up the loop again.
At the instant of its highest rise his
/, shoulders settled back, and caught it
/ in place. Then his feet were hitehedi
upward again q foot or more. Here
he leaned back in the upper loop,
bracing with his bare feet against
the smooth tree, and with the
machete cut through the bark two
gashes which converged about six
teen inches below the level at which
they started. !
Cut after cut was made in this way
until he reached the branches. Then
as the kulero descended he wetted
| his finge"s in the milk, and drew a
| straight line down from the lower,
part of one pair CT V-shaped cuts to
another to guide the flowing milk bv.
the shortest way. In the lower pair
of cuts he placed piece of leaf to
act as a spout to carry the milk
from the tree to the open end of the
| joint of cariso standing beneath.
| The first joint was soon full, and
another took its place. A plug of
leaves stopped the full one, and we
went on in search Of another tree,
| which he soon found, and repeated
the operation of bleeding. When a
! number of trees had been tapped in
' the same way, the operator carried
| all the cariso joints filed with the
milk to convenient spot, where he
dug a small pit in the ground
After looking about bit he found
a vino of kind wanted, and cut
from it several tender branches.
These he crushed between two stones.
then washed the bruised pulp in a
painful of water, making a grcenish
infusion with which he sprinkled
thoroughly the walls and bottom of
the pit.
Into this the rubber milk was
poured. In an instant that which
touched the earth wet by the infusion.
coagulated. Then the contents of
the pan were poured into the milk
and mixed thoroughly with it, al
most instantly changing it to a.
white, spongy mass. This was lifted
out and carried to the nearest brook,
where it was washed and kneaded to
express the juice Of the vine, which,
the hulero explained, would soon
harden the rubber so much that it
would be little better than tuno
gum, with which wicked huleros are
" ~ w e8e1 oAoCl ouO UllS1I EuDUor.
This mode of gathering rubber de-
stroys the trees in two seasons, for
each cutting kills that side of the
tree on which the incisions are
made. The government has enacted
laws for the protection of the trees,
but laws are ignored in these wilds
In very few years all the trees
large enough to bleed will be de-
stroyed, and fifteen OR twenty years
will pass before the young crop now
growing will be large enough to fur
nlsh milk at a profit.
Yet these trees ght be bled year
after year without serious injury, by
using an instrument that could not
cut completely through the bark.
and by leaving In the wound the
rubber which dries there, and which
will, if allowed to remain, protect
the tree from decay.