The Wonder Book Of Knowledge Part 11

The fruit is eaten fresh or dried. Cakes of dates pounded and kneaded together are the food of the Arabs who traverse the deserts. A liquor resembling wine is made from dates by fermentation.

Persia, Palestine, Arabia and the north of Africa are best adapted for the culture of the date-tree, and its fruit is in these countries an important article of food. It is now being introduced into California.

The Story of Rubber

Rubber is the coagulated sap of more than 300 varieties of tropical trees and vines--the Landolphia of Africa, the Ficus of the Malay Peninsula, the Guayule shrub of Mexico and the Castilloa of South America, Central America and Southern Mexico are all important rubber producers, but far more important than all of the others together is the Hevea, a native of Brazil.

Hevea trees are scattered through the dense forests of practically every part of the Amazon Basin, a territory more than two-thirds as large as the United States.

How was Rubber First Used?

Down in Brazil, several hundred miles up the Amazon River, there stood a great forest of trees and in this forest--the same as in forests of today--were birds and animals and bugs and beetles, etc. All trees are protected by nature; some are protected from bugs eating their leaves, by other bugs eating up these bugs; other trees are protected by having a th.o.r.n.y or bristly bark.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INDIANS PLAYING WITH A RUBBER BALL WHEN COLUMBUS CAME IN SIGHT

_Courtesy of the United States Rubber Co._]

In these forests in which the rubber tree grows there was a wood-boring beetle, and this beetle would attack these rubber trees, boring into them; but the tree, in order to protect itself, had a poisonous juice, and as soon as the beetle bored into the tree, this juice killed him.

Then the juice would fill up the hole the beetle had made, and the tree would go on growing as before.

In those days the natives around these forests (who were half Indian and half Negro) happened to find some of this juice sticking on the tree.

They cut it off, rolled it together and made a ball, with which they would play games. The first mention of it was made by Herrera in his account of the second voyage of Columbus, wherein he speaks of a ball used by Indians, made from the gum of a tree which was lighter and bounced better than the far-famed b.a.l.l.s of Castile.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE JUNGLE

LLAMA, DOMESTIC ANIMAL OF THE ANDES, USED TO CARRY RUBBER OVER MOUNTAINS

RAILROAD AROUND THE RAPIDS OF THE MADEIRA TERMINAL

CRUDE RUBBER "BISCUITS" ON THE BANKS OF THE AMAZON

_Courtesy of the United States Rubber Co._]

The way they gather this rubber is very interesting. When it comes from the tree it is nothing but a milky juice. The natives of South America soon discovered that the white man was willing to pay them beads and other trinkets for chunks of this rubber, so they became active in gathering it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE BANKS OF THE RIO GUAPORE--BRAZIL

_Courtesy of the B. F. Goodrich Co._]

What is a Rubber Camp Like?

In this locality the rubber harvest commences as soon as the Amazon falls which is usually about the first of August. When this date approaches bands of natives set out from their primitive homes and go, in many instances, hundreds of miles into the forest lowlands. There, within easy reach of the rubber trees, they set up their camp and the actual work of harvesting the rubber crop begins. It usually covers a period of about six months, extending from August to January or February.

The camps are usually great distances from the nearest town and procuring supplies is not only difficult but very expensive as well. The natives build their huts out of small poles covered with palm thatch and live in little colonies while the rubber harvest is going on. The Brazilian name for a rubber gatherer is "seringuero."

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUBBER GATHERER'S HUT NEAR THE AMAZON

_Courtesy of the B. F. Goodrich Co._]

A roof and floor with the flimsiest of walls, set up on piling for coolness, defense against animals and insects, and to keep the building dry during flood season, forms the home of the rubber gatherer. The more pretentious and better furnished home of the superintendent of the "estate," together with the storehouses, etc., are called the "seringal."

The buildings are usually grouped together at a favorable spot on the banks of the Amazon or one of its tributaries.

Furniture is of the most primitive type. The laborers and their families sleep in hammocks or on matting on the floor. Food is largely made up of canned goods and the ever-present farina, a sort of tapioca flour.

The climate of the South American rubber country is usually fatal to white men, and even among the Indians the fevers, the poisonous insects and reptiles, and the other perils of a tropical forest cause a high death rate. The production of South American rubber is limited by a shortage of men rather than a shortage of trees.

In December the rainy season begins. The waters of the Amazon begin to rise and the work ceases. The superintendent and many of the workers go down the river to Para and Manaos or to villages on higher ground.

However, a number of the laborers usually remain in the huts, loafing and fighting the animals and insects that seek refuge from the rising waters. They have but little to eat, and during the entire season practically no communication with the outside world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A HOME OF THE RUBBER GATHERERS

_Courtesy of the United States Rubber Co._]

At the end of the rainy season, early in May, the laborers return to their task. The quick-growing vegetation has filled the estradas and this must be cleared away and perhaps new estradas opened. An estrada is simply a path leading from one Hevea tree to another and circling back to camp. Each estrada includes about one hundred of the scattered Heveas.

After having established themselves in camp the natives take up their monotonous round, which is followed day after day as long as the rubber trees continue to yield their valuable sap. When the seringuero starts out he equips himself with a tomahawk-like axe having a handle about thirty inches long. This is called a "macheadino."

[Ill.u.s.tration: TAPPING HEVEA RUBBER TREE--BRAZIL

_Courtesy of the United States Rubber Co._]

How is Rubber Gathered by the Natives?

The trees are tapped very much like maple syrup trees. Only the juice is found between the outer bark and the wood. So these men make a cut in the tree through the bark, almost to the wood. A little cup is then fastened to the tree with a piece of soft clay to press the cup against it, and the juice runs into this cup. Sometimes they have from ten to thirty cups on one tree and the average yield of a tree is ten pounds of rubber a year.

Some two hours after the tapping is done the flow entirely ceases and the tree must be tapped anew to secure a fresh flow.

The film of rubber that forms on the inside of the cup and the bits of rubber remaining on the tree are collected and sold as coa.r.s.e Para.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE BANKS OF THE AMAZON

_Courtesy of the B. F. Goodrich Co._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GATHERING THE RUBBER MILK--BRAZIL

_Courtesy of the United States Rubber Co._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOW THE RUBBER MILK DRIPS FROM THE GASH IN THE TREE--BRAZIL]

The rubber gatherer carries in addition to a macheadino and many small tin cups, a larger vessel for gathering the liquid and carrying it to camp. One man will tap as many as 100 trees in a single morning and then cover the same ground again in the afternoon or on the following morning, gathering the sap that drips slowly from the cuts made in the trees. On these journeys the harvester frequently travels long distances over paths so buried by the undergrowth of the jungle that they are almost invisible to the untrained eye. On such expeditions rubber gatherers usually go armed with rifles to protect themselves against wild animals, reptiles and savage Indians.