The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-06-04

must see a rubber camp, and must make
some rubber myself in order to tell you
just how 1t Is done. AT my request they
hired steam launch and fitted IL out with
provisions for stay of two days. We had
four sailors. and we lived high. We failed,
however, to fix the price of the launch be-
forehand, and when the bill came in it was
10o000 rais, or little more than Sl00.
As a result / have my information. I
have also my ounce Of rubber. 1t is good
rubber, but unless j use IL in raising the
figures on some other mans check I doubt
whether / shall ever receive an adequate
return for my money.
We left in the evening and steamed all
night up the Amazon. Our hammocks were
slung to the roof OF the boat and we lay
there in our pyjamas. The air was delight
fully soft and just cool enough for COM
fort. 1t was moonlight and the equatorial
heavens were dotted with stars.
Early the next morning we landed at the
house of big rubber planter. Our host re-
ceived us in his bare feet on his veranda,
and gave US some coffee and bit of bread
for our breakfast. Later on he brought in
his wife and two daughters and introduced
them to us. The old woman was as broad
as she was long, and the two girls showed
| marked signs of negro blood, although they
We're by no means bad looking.
The house was right on the banks Of the
river. 1t was a rambling one-story struc-
ture. with a tiled roof surrounded by
porches. At one end was the storeroom filed
with supplies for the rubber employees. and
on the veranda were piles of rubber hams
smoked and ready for the market. When
we went back we took $500 worth of these
oil ov,I Iair
owner in a canoe behind our launch to Para.
WHAT A RUBBER TREE is.
After breakfast we walked about through
| the forest and watched the process of rub
Der gathering. First let me tell you just
| how a rubber tree looks. Many of you think
| you have seen in our hothouses the plants
| from which our rubber comes. You are mis-
taken. The rubber tree. with its thick. CLOS
sy, green leaves, which you have seen. is
] that which produces the gutta percha. 1t is
nothing like the great tree from which
comes the best rubber of commerce.
The real rubber tree is not unlike other
| forest trees. If it was not pointed out to you
you might travel throughout the Amazon
valley, and without you saw the rubber
| hunters at work you would not know what
| it was. 1t looks much like the English ash,
and it grows to height of more than sixty
feet.
| Its bark is silver gray where 1t has not
| become black by tapping. The trunk of the
| tree is about as big around as mans waist.
| Where 1t has been tapped it often swells out
| at the base, so that it is much larger. 1t
blossoms in August. being then covered with
| little white flowers. 1t is nut tree, and in
| December and January, when the nuts are
| ripe, the shells which contain them burst
| with noise like a fire-cracker, throwing
| the nuts to some distance. There are so
| many nuts on each tree that man could
| easily gather enough in a day to plant a
| hundred acres of land.
| The trees can be easily grown in the right
/ SOIL and they thrive without cultivation.
| 1t takes. however, from fifteen TO twenty
| years before they are old enough for rubber.
This is too long for a man to wait on the
| Amazon, and at present the trees which
| produce rubber are wild
HOW THE 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 a man can
| reach. and sometimes still higher. The trees
| are not bored with augers, as our maple
trees, nor are they SCARED like the turpen-
| tine pine trees of our Southern States. The
| tapping is done with tomahawk or Ratchet
which has blade an inch wide. The rubber
| gatherer makes a light cash in the bark
| with this Ratchet, just deep enough to go
| through without cutting the wood. AS he
| draws out the Ratchet 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 after-dinner
coffee cup and fits it 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 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 bucket
Each cup will have tablespoonful or so OF
milk, and if for his mornings work he gets
a gallon of fluid he has done well. The milk
flows slower and slower as the day goes on
The air coagulates it and after a few hours
the sap has stopped up the wound
A rubber tree which has been tapped looks
like mass Of fostering sores. The bark
which is of a smooth and beautiful silver
-
Scared and warty by the wounds of the
Ratchet. AS the wounds close tears of yell
low rubber sink down in the bark about
them. This comes out after the cup has
been removed. 1t is carefully picked off and
is sold as scrap or second grade rubber
bringing from 20 to 80 per cent. less than
the rubber gathered in the cups, which car
be properly cured.
RUBBER PATHS AND ROADS.
neglected TO say where the rubber trees
are found in the forests. There is no such
thing as a rubber grove or 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 rubber tree.
The forests are divided up into paths o,
from sixty to one hundred rubber trees. The
paths lead in and out of the woods. now
| crossing streams and 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 II. The size of a plantation
is known by the number of paths or roads
IL contains. There are some plantations
which contain more than 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