Of experiments to test the relative values of different systems of tapping there have been many. Most of them suffered from the initial handicap that they dealt with systems which were then popular. In order to obtain any valid result they had to be undertaken over a long period. Meantime there was a progressive movement in actual estate practice towards a greater conservatism in bark removal, and hence the experiments as originally planned lost value.
Moreover, in Malaya it was difficult for experimenters to obtain practical support in the form of areas of trees suitable for experiment. As a result experiments were often confined to small blocks of trees, and a small number of blocks, from which any conclusions derived were subject to considerable errors of experiment. Often comparisons were made between only two blocks, and no allowance was made for varying factors, such as initial differences in yielding capacities of the trees, soil conditions, or the personal equation of the tappers. As a general rule, therefore, the results were vitiated to a very appreciable extent.
All these factors were later taken into consideration in an experiment undertaken on behalf of the Rubber Growers’ Association. In this instance unique facilities were provided by the London Asiatic Rubber Company on their property at Semenyih Estate, and it is only fitting that the company should receive the recognition which its enterprise deserves.
It would have been a great advantage to have included in that experiment other features which have since come into prominence, but the original scope of the experiment had to be confined to the point of comparing yields obtained in making comparative tests based on one system of tapping with different frequencies. Such data were required as a check upon a Ceylon tapping experiment which had attracted much attention. In that experiment trees were tapped at intervals ranging from one day to seven days; and it was concluded that after a period of three and a half years trees tapped with greater intervals gave yields equalling or exceeding those obtained from trees tapped with shorter intervals.
The Single Cut on a Quarter Circumference, on an Old Tree
and on Renewed Bark.
In the Semenyih experiment the system chosen was that which had the greatest contemporary vogue—viz., two superimposed cuts on a quarter of the tree. The various blocks were tapped respectively every day, every second day, and every third day.
It was found that the conclusions drawn from the Ceylon experiment were not confirmed. After a period of three and a half years’ continuous tapping neither the alternate-day system nor the third-day system gave results in any way approximating to the yield of the daily system.
The actual average yields from these systems over the whole period were in the order of—