LIFE ON A RUBBER PLANTATION
During the time the trees are growing big enough to be tapped, the
principal work on a rubber plantation consists of weeding, manuring,
and pruning.
The staff consists of a manager, generally spoken of as the planter,
two, three, or half a dozen assistants, according to the size of
the estate, and a number of natives, called “coolies.” The planter,
a white man, has his own bungalow. On the big estates such bungalows
are large, well-built, convenient residences, of country-seat rank. If
the planter is married, his wife probably lives with him. His business
may have brought him to a lonely spot, where at present there may be
only a poor sort of bungalow to serve as the manager’s quarters, but
his wife has chosen to rough it with him, rather than say “Good-bye.”
And there may be some little English girls and boys to welcome Daddy
Planter when he comes in from his work of looking after many things
and many people; for, as a rule, white children thrive in the tropics
until they are seven or eight years old, and then, when the sad time
of parting does come, they are sent “home” to England not only for the
sake of their health, but in order that they may have the advantage
of going to a good school. The assistants on a plantation are usually
white men; in Malaya and Ceylon, almost all of them are English. They
chum together in a bungalow. The labourers are coloured men, women, and
children, in all shades of yellow and brown; their quarters are called
“coolie lines,” and are long buildings of the bungalow type, which are
partitioned off into family residences.
Many of the rubber estates, especially here in Malaya, seem to be so
isolated that we are tempted to compare them with a seringal in their
loneliness. In reality, no plantation, even though it be in the heart
of the Bush, is isolated in the strict sense of the word. Somewhere,
not very far away, there is a good road leading to some centre of
civilization that can be reached in a few hours, maybe an hour or two
by motor. Many of the planters keep a car, and “What’s mine is yours”
is the popular way of looking upon possessions. Both in Ceylon and
Malaya there are many little towns scattered throughout the rubber
districts, and in most of them an English Club is an important feature
of the place. In both countries, too, any planter can get to a railway
station without much difficulty or loss of time; and there are good day
and night trains to take him to the capital, or to one of the few big
towns.
With regard to the cultivation side of plantation work, the chief
matter on which the planters differ is the business of weeding. Some of
them are certain in their own minds that rubber-trees grow best when
the ground is quite clear of weeds. Some maintain that perfectly clean
weeding is a waste of time and money; they believe in having a clean
circle of ground round each tree, and keeping the weeds down on the
rest of the land by putting in some variety of dwarf spreading plant.
Those who favour this latter plan talk of the manuring properties of
such plants, and of the good they do by harbouring moisture. Planters
in favour of clean weeding say such plants keep light and air from
the ground, and that they are not good food for the soil. At the
various Botanic Gardens, especially in Ceylon, Malaya, and Java, many
scientists are devoting much time to the study of rubber cultivation
and preparation, and this question as to the best method of weeding is
receiving a great deal of attention.
[Illustration:
_M. S. Nakajima, Kuala Lumpur_
TAKING LATEX TO THE FACTORY BY BULLOCK-CART, IN MALAYA]
Whilst we have been talking, we have been making our way to one of
the oldest and finest rubber estates in the East. It is known as
“Linggi Plantations”; and is situated in the Federated Malay States,
in the neighbourhood of Kuala Lumpur, the chief up-country town of
Malaya, and close to Port Swettenham, the busy, up-country port which,
during the last few years, has been raised by the rubber industry to a
position of great importance on the Suez-Far East trading route.
“Linggi” consists of so many large plantations and up-to-date workshops
that in a whole day we can only get the merest peep at the estate.
We begin sight-seeing about six in the morning, just as the sun is
rising, by going into one block of one plantation to see the tappers
at work. We are in the midst of a carefully cultivated wood of Heveas;
all around us stand a dignified army of straight, tall trunks; high
overhead stretches a thick canopy of leaves. For a few moments, the
landscape strikes us as being a rather sombre picture in browns and
greens, and we cannot see a single human being anywhere in the scene.
Presently the dawnbeams discover numerous chinks in the canopy, and
come streaming through the leaves, here, there, and everywhere; the
ground is bronzed, the trunks are gilded, the treetops are illuminated
with quaintly shaped patches of rosy light. Then, suddenly the scene
becomes a blaze of colour; strolling leisurely across the horizon come
a crowd of figures, all of whom are undoubtedly wearing some bit of
clothing that is bright red, green, blue, or yellow.
These people are a gang of tappers, who are going to make their daily
round of certain trees from which it is their duty to collect milk.
They disperse in various directions, some making straight for trees
that are close by where we are standing. As we get a nearer view of the
labourers, we are better able to study their picturesque attire. Some
of the men are wearing nothing but a cloth round their loins, and a
handkerchief, knotted into a turban, on their heads. Many of the male
folk look like women; they have long hair, which is twisted at the neck
into a “bun,” and their nether garment is a piece of cotton material
which is hung round the waist skirt-fashion. The women’s costumes are
evidently made as they dress themselves. They are clad in draperies,
which hang in graceful folds. Very large earrings, nose-rings, numbers
of bangles that reach half-way up the arms, and bangles round the
ankles are striking features of their attire.
Most of these labourers are Tamils from India. A large proportion
of the coolies employed on the rubber estates of Ceylon and Malaya
consists of Tamils. In Ceylon, some of the labourers are Cingalese; in
Malaya, the rubber estate coolies include a few Malays, some Javanese,
and a number of Chinese. In both countries it is very difficult for
the planters to get as much labour as they require, in spite of the
large immigrant population, and in order to make an estate pay, the man
at the head of affairs, and all his assistants, must be so skilful at
managing the natives that this particular estate is never the one to be
short of hands.
Following a tapper on his round in a plantation is a very easy
expedition compared with that journey we took with a seringueiro to
see him get his morning’s milk. The plantation tapper is surrounded by
rubber-trees, they are never very far apart, and even when, for some
reason or other, he has to pass one by without operating on it, the
distance from his last stopping-place to his next is quite short. As a
rule, only trees that measure at least 18 inches round at 3 feet from
the ground are tapped, but some trees, even though they belong to the
grown-ups, have to be missed out for a time because they are doing
a rest cure. Most of the trees in a grown-up section are, however,
tapped daily, or on alternate days, for the greater part of the year,
but the circumference of the trunk is so portioned off for operations
that no part is retapped until old wounds have completely healed. Yet
it is seldom that a tree is tapped at a higher distance than can be
conveniently reached from the ground. The amount of milk yielded by a
tree depends partly on its age, and partly on the state of its health.
If a tree gives enough milk to make about 3/4 pound of rubber the first
year it is tapped, it is considered a good specimen. As it grows older,
the yield should steadily increase. During 1909, one of the finest old
Hevea trees in Ceylon, aged thirty-three, gave 15 gallons of milk,
which contained 76 pounds of rubber.
At random we choose which coolie we will accompany on his round, and
as we dog his footsteps we see a great deal of the outdoor life on a
rubber plantation. At first, all our attention is taken up by watching
how the one tapper does his work. The trees he visits already bear
a herringbone, or half herringbone, design on the lower part of the
trunk; but it consists of alternate strips of almost bared wood and
of bark, slanting down into the central line. With a tool something
like a chisel, the coolie takes a shaving off each strip of bark,
whereupon milk oozes out from the cuts, makes for the central channel,
and trickles down into an enamel cup that awaits it at the base of the
trunk.
Presently we are joined by another onlooker. Although he looks
very much like a coolie, he is far and away the superior of the
working-class mass. He is a “kangany,” an enterprising native who
serves the planter in the double rôle of recruiting-sergeant and
overseer. He makes periodical journeys to India to arrange for new
batches of Tamils to emigrate to the rubber-growing districts;
he brings his recruits to the particular district which is his
headquarters, and sees them settled on this estate or that; and until
he is again wanted to go off recruiting, he joins the staff of some
plantation, and takes up the duties of teaching the new hands their
work, and of seeing that a certain gang of the old ones are kept up to
the mark.
Evidently the kangany overseers cannot be wholly relied on as teachers.
For the one over yonder, who is showing a little Tamil girl how to tap
a rubber-tree, has a white man standing by his side and superintending
the lesson.
By about eleven o’clock most of the trees are ceasing for this day to
yield milk. The coolies now make their rounds again for the purpose
of collecting the day’s supply. The contents of the little cups are
poured into pails and cans, which, as they are filled, are taken to the
factory. Some of the carriers balance their load on their head, others
hang a vessel at either end of a pole, scale-fashion, and balance the
burden on one shoulder.