Show sap of sapodilla tree chewing gum ingredient if a blight should destroy the sapodilla tree millions of americans would mourn for it is the sap of the sapodilla tree that supplies and is the basic ingredient of chewing gum relates a writer in the philadelphia record the is drained from the trees in central america jungles i the rainy season by machete be beag ing natives called chicleros chic leros the they climb the trees cover them with cross catchings of cuts connect these with central canals that drain the sap into canvas bags the liquid is then boiled poured into molds hardened into bricks and thus shipped on arrival in factories in the united states the bricks are dried out tor for 30 hours then melted filtered poured purred into mixers stirred with pulverized sugar corn syrup and flavoring then cooled and rolled the rolled gum is fed into breaking machines which cut 22 sticks of gum with one click of the punch press turning out sticks a minute wrapping machines turn out finished packs of five sticks each per minute belize in british honduras IV ar headquarters of the t tors ors who hire native crews to extract the sap |