The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-07-27
,ies of our best rubber come.

ties of our best rubber come.
 We hire small boats and are rowv ed off into the forests. visiting one little camp after another, and spend ing many days in watching the In dians and Negroes gathering the Juice and making it into rubber hams like those we saw at Para.
 We are much interested in the trees which furnish the rubber. and soon learn to pick them out from the others. As already stated. they are known by the name Hevea Brasilten- sis. They are not at all like the rubA Der plants grown in our hothouses, but are great trees, with silver-gray bark and leaves like and English asn. Tn August they have white blossoms; and along about Christmas they bear quantities of little nuts inclosed In shells, which. when ripe, burst with noise like the cracking of a pistol. scattering the nuts to some distance. For this reason the trees are usually found so wide apart that one man cannot collect the juice from more than, 100 or 150 trees. Each hand is allotted so many along what IS known as a rubber path, and heNmust often travel miles in his days march l from tree to tree and back to the camp.
 The rubber comes from the juice of l the tree. This is not the true sap, l although that word is often used in describing it. It is a milkHke fluid chat oozes out of the bark when cut. and which contains little globules of rubber that rise to the top like cream when the milky juice is allowed to
 stand. The process of getting out
 the rubber consists of tapping the ] treating 1t that the water in it is e1aporated and only the rubber is left.
 But suppose we go out with the men at this camp where we now are. and make some rubber ourselves. Each of us is given a hatchet with 1 blade an inch wide, a dozen or so little tin cups with sharp rims, and a guord-like bucket, in which to bring our rubber milk home. We go along one of the paths and make slight gashes in each rubber tree with l our hatchets, cutting we'll into the bark. but not touching the wood. As we do so, the milk begins to ooze forth in white tears. We now make another cut below our first gash, and 2 there -Idf5ISn 1 CuR py LIS s,AAcsAP A~~-H so that it will catch the rubber tears as they fall. We then cut a. gash an another place for a second cup, and i so on, fastening several cups to4 each | tree This consumes the greater part i of the morning; and when we have
 finished tapping the trees and att l taching the cups, we are far away from the camp.
 Going back we gather the rubber from our own and the other cups on
 the trees, getting only a spoonful or so from each We empty many cups | and, by the time we have returned, each has a gallon or more of this
 white rubber juice. It looks like
 milk, and is about the same thick
 ness. We thrust in our fingers and
 taste it. -.is sweet, but not fit to
 drink. The rubber gatherers tell us
 that the juice flows most freely in the | morning, and slower and slower as l the day goes on. The air coagu1ates 1 1t, and, after a short time, it closes | the wounds with rubber shoppers, as
 1t were.
 We pass many trees that have been
 tapped again and again from season 1 Ito season, Their trunks are swollen
 and scared by the wounds of; the
 htchets. Tears of yellow rubber hang
 down under the wounds in the cracks l of the bark. These tears are pulled out when the cup is taken away, and sold as scrap or second grade rub
 Der.
 Here we are at the camp, ready to 1 turn the juice we have collected from the trees into raw rubber, such as
 we saw at Para. This is done by
 smoking and eyaporating it over .
 fire. To make the best rubber, the milk must be smoked on the day it I Is gathered. We take some palm
 nuts and palm leaves and place them
 under a little clay chimney arranged for the purpose. This fuel burns l quickly, and a dense smoke soon 1 pours forth. In the meantime we
 have emptied our tree milk into a big round bowl, much like that in which our mothers kneaded bread.
 Each of us has a wooden paddle with 1 a long handle attached. He dips this
 color of snow. The milk has stuck
 to it and coated it white. He now
 thrusts the paddle into the smoke, and twists and turns it about, in or der that the juice may be evenly warmed. In moment or so the
 heat has driven out the moisture. the
 smoke has hardened the milk, and he
 has a paddle covered with rubber Now the paddle Is again thrust into the bowl and a second coat of rubber is formed in the same way. Another and another layer is thus put on; and l at last great round lump Of rub