The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-06-04

distance. There are so many nuts on
each tree that a man could easily gather
enough in day to plant hundred acres
Of land.
The trees can be easily grown in the
right soil, and they thrive without cult
walton. 1t takes, however, from fifteen TO
twenty years before they are old enough
for rubber. This is too long for man to
wait on the Amazon. and at present the
trees which produce rubber are wild.
HOW TREES ARE TAPPED.
The rubber comes from the sap of this
tree. The tapping is done from the
ground from the roots to as high up as a
man can reach, and sometimes still high
er. The trees are not bored with augurs
as our maple trees, nor are they SCARED
like the turpentine pine trees of our
southern states. The tapping is done with
a -tomahawk or Ratchet which has blade
an inch wide. The rubber gatherer makes
a light cash In the bark with this hatchet,
just deep enough to go through without
cutting the wood. AS he draws out the
hatchet a milk=white fluid oozes out in
drops. The fluid is as thin as milk 1t is
much like the juice of the milk weed.
The Taper now takes little cup of tin
or clay about as big as an after-dinrer
coffee cup and fits 1t into another cut
which he makes below the cash. so that
the drops of milk run down into it, He
makes three or four gashes in each tree,
fitting each with its cup, and then goes
on to the next He continues his work
until every tree allotted to him has been
tapped.
He does this early In the morning when
the sap runs best. By noon he has gone
again from tree to tree and emptied the
milk from the cup into gourd-like buck
ct. Each cup will have tablespoonful or
Nf IL - &c., IL
he gets gallon of fluid he has done we'll
The milk flows slower and slower as the
day goes on. The air coagulates it and
after q few hours the sap has stopped I'D
the wound.
rubber tree which has been tapped
looks like mass of fostering sores The
bark, which is of a smooth and beautiful
silver gray where 1t has not been touch
ed, becomes SCARED and warty by the
wounds of the Ratchet AS the wounds
close tears of yellow rubber sink down
in the bark about them. This comes
out after the cup has been removed It
is carefully picked off and is sold as
scrap or second grade rubber, bringing
from 20 to so per cent less than the rub
Der gathered in the cups, which can be
properly cured.
RUBBER PATHS AND ROADS.
I neglected to say where the rubber
trees are found in the forests There
is no such thing as a rubber grove or a
rubber forest. The trees do not grow in
groups, but they are scattered among the
other trees so that you often have to go
long distances from rubber tree to rub
Der tree.
The forests are divided up into paths
of from sixty to one hundred rubber
trees. The paths lead in and out of the
woods, now crossing streams and now
going through swamps, until all the
trees on them have been reached. Each
path is allotted to one man, who gashes
the trees and gathers the rubber upon
it. The size of a plantation is known
by the number of paths or roads it con-
tains. There are some plantations which
contain more than a thousand roads.
1t was along such a path as this that
we went from tree to tree gathering
rubber. I gashed one of the best looking
trees and fastened the cup under it. La
ter on I gashed others and in due time
l gathered my rubber and brought 1t
back to the house.
SMOKING THE RUBBER.
The next process was the smoking. To
produce the best rubber the sap must be
smoked the same day that 1t is gathered.
The sap soon coagulates on exposure to
the air and hardens best under the infiu-
ence of smoke. Together with the rubber
employees l made a fire in a corner of the
SHSQ uHQeT II nlCl6 clay CHIMNEY. Inc Iu6l
was palm nuts, which, when lighted, caus-
ed a dense smoke to pour out of the
chimney. The chimney was just about as
high my knee, just high enough so that
could easily hold the wooden paddle in
the smoke and turn it around without
trouble.
Now the rubber sap which I had gath
cred was poured into bowl much like
that in which our cooks knead bread. 1t
looked just like milk and was about Of
the same thickness.
Into this bowl l thrust my paddle 1t
came out coated with milk. I held it in
the smoke, turning 1t rapidly, and in
about minute the rubber had hardened
upon it. I then thrust it into the bowl
again for a fresh coat of milk, hardened
this in the smoke In the same way and
thus went on until l had built up layer
after layer of sap upon my paddle.
The smoke came into my eyes. l wept
almost as many tears as there were drops
of rubber sap in the bowl, and finally,
having made a very small quantity 1
handed the job over to the professionals
They continued at the smoking for
hours, and in the end had one of the rub
Der hams of commerce about the paddle
This was now cut open with a knife and
the paddle taken out. From the cut part
l could easily see the layers made by the
smoking. 1t was cut rubber ham, look
ing much like cheese. In the smoking