HOW A RUBBER FOREST LOOKS.
According to recent accounts of the reckless manner in which forests of rubber trees are destroyed, India rubber will soon be much more scarce and costly than it now is, and when that happens it is probable that some one will invent a substitute. At present, however, it is interesting to know what a recent traveler says of the India-rubber forests of Nicaragua:
“A forest of them may be detected without the eyes of an expert, for they are scarred and dying from the wounds of the machete, the big knife used by the natives. The ordinary specimen of Nicaragua is from fifty to one hundred feet high, and about two feet in diameter.
“The bark is white, and the leaves are oval, with a slight inclination downward. The cuts are made about two feet apart, and usually extend from the ground to the first branch, channels being scored in the sides to lead the juice into a bag. The average yield of a tree is from five to seven gallons of milky fluid.
“This is mixed with the juice of the ‘wisth,’ which hastens congelation. After this operation the crude rubber is baled up and shipped north, to be refined and further prepared for commerce. Another tree, very similar to the rubber, and often mistaken for it, is the cow tree. This yields a liquid very much like milk in taste and appearance.”