When Elder Shipley and I were children there was a song that had a chorus that went, "Opps there goes another rubber tree plant!" Well we had never seen or known what a rubber tree looked like, but the tune was catching and we loved singing it. Last weekend we walked through a rubber tree plantation singing that song.
The forest was beautiful - very tall white barked trees - ferns and other vegetation on the forest floor. Little pails attached to the trees to harvest the rubber (the sap) from the tree. Many trees had 2 and 3 pails - one below the other - to catch the drips with the pail above them became full. We pulled a small glob out of the pail and formed it into a string and then tied the ends together - it was just like a rubber band - amazing.
And so while we serve in West Africa we continue to learn about the world and the creations of God. Really interesting how one type of tree sap can give you maple syrup and another type of tree sap can give you rubber!
2 comments:
Wow, that's something I've never really thought about--where rubber comes from. I would have never guessed it came from a tree. Very cool.
How wierd is that! Thanks for sharing the rubber trees--that was fun to hear about.
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