ity palm was in the first instance nailed with pegs of hard wood round
the stem, not horizontally, but at an angle: sometimes, when necessary,
in a spiral. In other cases a similar band of clay was made to encircle
the tree. These collars served as channels, compelling the latex, as it
exuded from cuts made in the tree, to flow into a small tin cup suspended
at the lowest point of the collar. The incisions were never made lower
than 2 or 3 ft. from the ground. They must not penetrate deeper than the
entire thickness of the bark of the tree, and they must on no account
touch or wound the actual wood, or the tree would suffer greatly--even
die. In some regions the incisions were made longitudinally, in others
transversely. The operation was repeated by the seringueiro each time on
every rubber tree as he went along the estrada, the latex flowing freely
enough into the tin cup after each fresh incision had been made.

The seringueiro thus tapped each tree on his way out along the estrada,
which in some cases may be several miles long; in other cases, where
rubber trees were plentiful, only a few hundred yards in length. On his
return journey the seringueiro emptied each small tin cup--by that time
filled with latex--into the large bucket which invariably accompanied him
on his daily round. Rubber-trees possess in a way at least one
characteristic of cows. The more milk or latex one judiciously extracts
from them, the more they give, up to a certain point. But, indeed, such a
thing is known as exhausting a tree in a short time. A good seringueiro
usually gives the trees a rest from the time they are in bloom until the
fruit is mature. In some regions even a much longer respite is given to
the trees--generally during the entire rainy season. In some localities,
too, in order to let the latex flow more freely, a vertical incision is
made above and meeting a horizontal one. At intervals oblique incisions
are cut next to the vertical ones, but in Matto Grosso I never saw that
complicated system of incisions adopted--only vertical incisions parallel
to one another at a distance of 0.25 m. (9-7/8 in.) being made
there, and in rows one above another. Some of the trees had actually
hundreds of those cuts--many, of course, healed. Each cut only exudes
latex for a comparatively short time, merely an hour or so.

During the first month after a tree is tapped, the supply of latex is
generally plentiful; the second month it gives less; l