Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1902 — TAP 24,000,000 TREES. [ARTICLE]

TAP 24,000,000 TREES.

In the Process of Obtaining the Crude Rubber of Brazil. In the vast tropical forests which clothe the banks of the Amazon River and its tributaries there are produced every year 24,000 tons of rubber and 120,000 laborers are engaged in getting it out. This requires the tapping of some 24,000,000 trees, and as the rubber trees are scattered through the woods, with an average of twq trees to an acre, it may be taken that since the beginning of the season, in August last, 50,(XX),(XX) acres of Amazonian forest have been worked for rubber, an area nearly as big as the State of Kansas. The milky-julce from which rubber is made is contained in a system of special tubes' running through the tissues of the plant. It is quite different from the sap, and probably does not play any part in the nutrition of the tree. According to some authorities, it forms a reserve of water to be drawn upon in ease of drought. This “latex,” as it is called, is almost exactly like ordinary, every-day milk, except that in it “caoutchouc” takes the place of ."butter.” When a tree is tapped the milk flows from it for three or four hours and then stops of its own accord. A tree is not killed Dy repeated tappings. It will, after a while, "go dry,” like a cow, but after a sufficient rest will begin to give milk again. Some old standbys in the Amazonian forests have been giving milk for fifty years and still are yielding it. When a rich mnn falls In love, th* storekeepers count on selling him anything.