Chapter V: Industries (2)

The approach of the dry season upon the Amazon heralds the incoming from other northern regions, generally Ceará, of a host of workers. Anyone who has travelled on the steamers going up the river at the beginning of the rubber season has looked down upon the deck where throngs of people are herded together, their hammocks slung in tiers one above the other; at times of drought whole families come out from the “_distritos flagellados_,” and men, women and children are crowded in an intimacy which would be more trying than it is were it not for the apparently unfailing good-nature and mutual courtesy of these northern peasants. Much of their simple cooking, washing, and toilet changes are perforce unsheltered; gentle, easily amused, they never seem to complain, but, playing their inevitable guitars and singing their _modinhas_, they watch the yellow flood of the great river, bordered with the line of distant forest, so vast that ideas of size are lost in its sweeping monotony. Arrived at Manáos the collector goes to the store of the _aviador_, gets his outfit of tools—cups for collecting latex, big knife (machado), little axe, bucket, and metal cone for smoke-regulation in the coagulating process—as well as food and such clothes as he may need, possibly adding a gun, and when the cost of his lodging has been added to the bill, he may set out in one of the _gaiolas_ that ascend the upper rivers, en route to the _seringal_ where he has arranged to work. An average _seringal_ contains fifty _estradas_; to each _seringueiro_ (collector), two _estradas_ are allotted, tapped on alternate days and each _estrada_ (literally road or walk) contains, in a good _seringal_, an average of seventy to one hundred and twenty trees. Before the _seringueiro_ does a stroke of work there has been a heavy outlay by the owner (_patrão_) of the estate for its preparation. Forestal opening is done by the _matteiro_, the expert forester whose work is probably better paid than any other manual labour of the Amazon; it is he who enters the wild forest, locates the rubber trees within a given area, and makes paths from each _seringueira_ (rubber tree) to the next in the central part of each estrada, always ending by cutting an encircling road which runs all about the _estrada_. On this outer road the rubber collector usually builds his little hut—“more of an oven than a home,” says Eloy de Souza—of palm thatch, and the tiny smoking room (_defumador_) where each day’s supply of latex is coagulated.

The work of the _matteiro_ is paid according to the number of rubber trees found and prepared for tapping; he gets about the equivalent of one dollar for each tree; Woodroffe reckons that in the cases when the patrão of an estate has advanced money for the steamship fares of his imported labourers, advanced food and equipment, and paid for preparation of the _seringal_, each man represents an outlay of “quite £100 by the time he stands up under the trees to tap them.” It must not be supposed, therefore, that because rubber is wild upon the Amazon that it costs nothing to collect it; on the contrary in spite of the lavish hand of Nature expenses in the wild regions of South America are far higher than they are in the East, where land has been cleared and each sapling patiently planted and tended.

_Rubber on the Amazon._

Hevea brasiliensis tree, scarred by tapping.

Smoking the day’s collection of latex.

Hut of the Seringueiro.
]

The _seringueiro_ has no easy life. He gets out of his hammock before dawn, and with his lantern fixed to his head makes his way through the forest, laden with his little _machadinho_, the universally used and abused axe with which the trees are gashed, with the big knife, the _machado_ or _machete_ inseparable from the Central or South American, and perhaps a gun in case any edible animal of the woods is encountered. As each tree is reached it is hastily gashed, a little metal cup (_tigelinha_) fixed below each wound to receive the milk which immediately runs out; when he returns at last by way of the outer path to his hut it is past six o’clock and quite light. If he has a family with him, his _senhora_ has prepared his coffee, but if as is usual he is alone he will now light a fire, drip his coffee, prepare a little food, and smoke a _cigarro_. Later in the morning he must make a second round, if the milk is not to coagulate in the cups; he takes his bucket (the _balde_), tips the contents of each little cup into it, carefully inverting these on sticks at the foot of the tree, to prevent the clotting of drippings and the invasion of insects. When he returns he may have four or more litres of milk which must now be coagulated in the _defumador_; the process may take half an hour or over two hours, according to the amount brought in and the quality of the latex. A fire is made with nuts of one of the _attalea_ palms, generally “uricury,” which give off a remarkably acrid smoke with properties for rendering the rubber just what it should be that are the despair of chemists: no substitute has been found that equals it. A metal cone a couple of feet high is placed over the well-started fire, to bring the smoke into a narrow channel at the top; the _seringueiro_ takes a prepared piece of wood, dips it into the bucket of milk, or pours milk over it with the _cuia_ (little bowl made of a half-gourd) and holds it over the smoke. The milk coagulates instantly, turning pale brown on the outside; layer after layer is added, a skin at a time, until all the latex in the bucket is coagulated. It may be late at night before the _seringueiro_ has finished his work, for in the course of the day he has walked anything from six to ten miles, and every part of the operations has been performed by him alone. It is fortunate that his housekeeping work is limited to the preparation of his food: practically the only furnishing of his hut is his hammock.

To produce a _pelle_, the big black ball which may be seen in Pará and Manáos on the wharves, in warehouses, on the pavements, whole or sliced in halves with their creamy hearts displayed, or floating down the tributary rivers on rafts, the _seringueiro_ has to work for about a month. Each day’s collection of latex is coagulated on top of the previous rubber until the ball is made to what the _seringueiro_ thinks is a convenient size. Day after day, only interrupted by sickness, he labours in the sweltering forest at this toil, eating food of very limited variety, without exchanging a word, perhaps, with another human being for weeks at a time; each _seringal_ is supposed to be under inspection, to avoid maltreatment of the trees, but as a rule this supervision is a fiction. Small wonder that when the collector at last leaves the _seringal_, and takes his rubber to Manáos, he spends a few riotous days, limited by the amount of his money balance remaining after the debt has been paid to the _aviador_. The aviador it is who also buys the pelles and in the busy season when rubber begins to come in, these stores present a curious sight. Sometimes the _seringueiro_, in good years, saves money; he may buy a seringal or a little store of his own; a few fortunes have thus been made from the collector class, but they are rather the exceptions that prove the rule.

These conditions, under which a nominally independent collector works in a rented _estrada_ and sells his rubber to the store-keeper to whom he is in debt—and who is often also the owner of the _seringal_—are general as regards the collection of the latex of the “black” rubber trees of the upper Amazon. This is the origin of the _fina_ class of rubber, with _sernamby_ or scrap as a kind of by-product, result of carelessness; the _fina_, however, is usually at least eighty per cent of a good workman’s product, and this is the rubber which, with _caucho_, has made Manáos.

_Caucho_ is rubber produced from the milk of _castilloa elastica_, growing in profusion along the banks of the Rio Branco, tributary of the Negro, in North Amazonia and on many streams of Peruvian origin; the industry connected with this tree is really independent, the result of individual searchings for trees. Parties go up these rivers, hunt in the bordering woods for the _castilloa_, straightway cut it down and bleed it for the last drop of latex, and go on their way.

Down near the mouth of the Amazon, where the “white” rubber trees are most commonly found, it is not unusual for collectors to own sections of forest with their little homes at its edge; they, too, are almost independent—of everything except the industrial conditions upon the Amazon, and the rubber prices fixed far away in London or New York.

Nearly all South American States depend upon export and import taxes for their main revenues, and it is a fairly general rule that native products leaving the country pay heavily for that privilege. In Brazil all import dues are imposed and collected by the Federal Government, and are similar throughout the country without respect to the special conditions of separate states; the export taxes are imposed by the State Governments, without restraint. In some regions the “pauta” or export tax is changed every week or so in conformity with prices in world markets, a board sitting specially for the purpose of making these constant adjustments. Some Brazilian products are taxed to what may be called a reasonable extent, but in others exports have been bled out of existence, while still others are barely able to enter world markets, staggering under their load. How many exporting countries would put upon a product facing competition abroad a tax equal to one-third of its value? This is the weight with which Amazonian rubber went to market for many years: the combined charges of the State, municipalities, and other smaller items added up to over thirty per cent of the “official value” of the product.

In response to appeals, export taxes were reduced after the outbreak of the European War, and during the year 1916 State taxes, together with dues put on by cities, amounted to about twenty per cent of the value of the rubber—a sufficiently heavy burden, but which Amazonas proposes to increase again; at the same time the product of Matto Grosso pays only twelve per cent, an equal amount is imposed upon rubber originating in the Acre Territory, while that exported from Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, but finding its exit by the water highways of the Amazon, pays only five per cent. As a result of these lesser dues collected by sister countries, there is a certain amount of smuggling done: rubber originating near the boundaries is passed across, and exported as if coming from one of the three Republics named; that such evasion of taxes is limited is due to the lack of roads or of any communication means besides those of the rivers, all of which are watched by Government agents. At the same time that the Amazon imposes this burden upon her rubber, the Eastern (Plantation) product pays nothing at all when the market price is below 18 pence—say thirty-six cents—a pound, and when it stands above two shillings a tax of two and a half per cent of the value is paid.

Consumption of the entire supply of marketed rubber was, immediately prior to the European War, almost evenly divided between North America and Europe: one of the industrial adjustments made after hostilities began was the shifting of a larger share of rubber, and rubber manufacturing, to the United States, so that in 1914 she took fifty per cent of the marketed total, one hundred and twenty thousand tons, and in 1915 increased these purchases to nearly sixty-two per cent of the total marketed, or ninety-seven thousand tons out of about one hundred and fifty-eight thousand.

Distribution of the world’s crop in 1915:—

United States 61.5 97,000
Great Britain 9.6 15,072
Russia 7.6 12,000
France 7.2 11,500
Italy 4.8 7,500
Germany, Austria 3.8 6,000
Canada 2.5 4,000
Japan and Australia 1.6 2,500
Scandinavia 1.4 2,252

The course of the next few years may see Brazil herself on the lists as a rubber-consuming country. For fifty years she has exported rubber, crude, and such manufactures of rubber as she has used have been imported from the United States or Europe; she imported in 1915 about six hundred and eighty-three tons of rubber manufactures, chiefly tyres, worth a million dollars, which was less than the imports of 1913, and which might show greater diminution if the unfortunately conceived law intended to protect “fine hard Pará,” but which resulted in paralyzing rubber imports, were sustained. This alteration in the tariff, operating early in 1915, changed the old import tax of five per cent ad valorem to a scale with violent differences; rubber manufactures made with the Brazilian product were charged one hundred reis a kilo (a fraction over two cents U. S.) while articles made with foreign rubber were taxed ten milreis (say two dollars and sixty cents) a kilo.

An excellent idea, warmly applauded; but when the time came to apply the law it was found impossible to discover the real origin of the rubber, and in order to avoid any chance of letting in foreign material practically scot free the official valuers charged all entering articles at the high rate.

Thus a consignment of two hundred pneumatic tyres which under the old law would have paid about 2:200 milreis in duties for entry were under the new tariff charged 22:000—or let us say about $5,500 instead of the former $550, for import taxes alone. Needless to say, importing houses left rubber goods in the customs-houses while they appealed to the authorities for relief from this too paternal measure. Some of the Amazonian rubber merchants have defended the idea, which is good enough in theory, but in practice it seems to have been as little useful as that extraordinary commission charged with the _Defesa da Borracha_, which in the years 1912–14 spent about twenty-eight thousand contos of reis (over $7,000,000) in salaries, investigations, recommendations, experiments and printed matter, and has today not an iota of improvement of Amazonian conditions to show for the money.

Brazil has a few rubber factories of her own, generally small, but doing a satisfactory and increasing business; the Brazilian Government has also concluded an arrangement with the Goodyear Tire Company for the erection of a factory which should greatly increase national rubber manufactures. The first modern rubber factory in Brazil was established in São Paulo State, in 1913, by Theodore Putz and Company, where solid tyres, tubes, stamps, valves, and other articles are made; it has a capital of two hundred contos and an annual turnover of three hundred contos, paying twenty-five contos a month for labour. Five hundred kilos of Pará, and one thousand kilos of _mangabeira_ rubber are used monthly. Another firm of recent origin is that of Berrogain & Cia. in Rio, turning out a variety of manufactures and prospering.

The future of rubber production is a question frequently discussed. It is not immediately probable that the Brazilian output will greatly increase from its average of twenty to thirty thousand tons, not only because more labour is not as yet available, but also because the untapped resources away from the easily reached river banks can scarcely be reached without large outlays on roads, drainage, and other expenses connected with opening-up, which are not more than planned for the time being. Plantation rubber has not yet reached its expected maximum, but no very great areas have been added since 1911, and it is reckoned that with an average yield of four hundred pounds an acre the world’s output will in a few years place from three hundred thousand to three hundred and thirty thousand tons of dry rubber on the markets. Demand by the year 1930, if it kept up at the same ratio as the last five or six years, would require a great deal more than this, no less than three hundred and seventy-three thousand tons of rubber. This will not occur unless automobile sales in the United States keep up also at the same rate (tyres for this industry already take over 100 thousand tons of rubber) but even with a diminution in the increase there appear to be good prospects ahead for the rubber industry: Germany, for instance, will be demanding crude rubber in great quantities when the European War comes to an end, for in spite of the ingenuity of German chemists it is plain that synthetic rubber is not a success. If it were anything like a substitute for the real thing the Central Powers would not have made such constant efforts to obtain even small quantities of the precious gum through the blockade of the Allies. The war has definitely disposed of that spectre. Synthetic rubber requiring a base of a special turpentine is said to be produced at a cost four times that of the gum of the _hevea_, and that figure alone would dispose of it as a commercial possibility, apart from the limitation of turpentine supplies, the need for mixing the solution with real rubber, and the practical demonstration of its unsatisfactory quality.

PACKING-HOUSES, MEAT EXPORT, AND CATTLE RAISING

The meat business is not a new one in Brazil, for her cattle raising states have had a surplus of beef animals ever since the first _donatarios_ sailed out to take possession of their strips of coast, and brought seeds, saplings, ducks and chickens, goats, horses and cattle along with them: the cattle throve, soon ran wild in the interior, and becoming modified by natural selection developed national types which are today quite distinctive although their European origin is recognizable. The first cattle were shipped to Brazil to the Capitania of S. Vicente in 1534 by Dona Anna Pimentel, consort of the first captain, and manager of the interests of the colony during his absence in India.

Brazil has thirty million head of cattle. That is to say, two or three million more than the Argentine possesses. But her herds are only worth a fraction of the Argentine value because the stock is poor, some of it thin and scrubby, with but one steadily developed type of first-class quality. The scientific breeders of Brazil—and there is quite a list of them—have lacked a reason for developing their work until recently. In the absence of the packing-house there was no demand for beef beyond that of the _matadouros_ (town slaughter-houses) and the _xarque_ factories. For the _xarque_ makers any class of animal would serve: a Hereford of pure blood would bring no more than a _zebu_ unless he happened to weigh more.

_Xarque_ making is the ancient meat-drying industry, invented by who knows what hunter in bygone ages; it is the _biltong_ of Africa, the _tasajo_ of the Argentine, the jerked beef of the North. Well salted and dried, it is good food enough, and France did not disdain to buy it from Brazil for the use of her troops in 1915–18. The southerly states of Brazil are the great supporters of cattle stocks, and there are the extensive beef-drying factories; Rio Grande slaughters over half a million head of cattle for this purpose every year, the number rising to its maximum in 1912 with nine hundred thousand head, and chiefly ships the _xarque_ produced to other Brazilian regions; it is the _carne secca_ of that beloved Brazilian dish, the _feijoada_, eaten all over the Union. The coastal and northern regions of Brazil, comparatively poor cattle regions, are so much dependent upon dried beef imports that the _xarque_ industry should have a ready market in the future as in the past: but since 1914 a rival has risen up seriously threatening the old industry in prestige.

Almost simultaneously two packing-houses, both in S. Paulo State, began demanding cold storage space in vessels calling at Santos, and refrigerator cars on railways leading to the port. Brazil, to the astonishment of the markets, was offering chilled and frozen beef. At any other time she might have received a welcome less enthusiastic, but her offer came at a time when Europe needed every pound of meat for army use; the Brazilian product was tested by Smithfield standards, found good, and today has its place in overseas meat markets. It is a modest place, but today beef is taking its stand among the “principaes artigos da exportação”—hides have long stood in the list of thirteen favoured names—although the end of the war diminished overseas demands.

During 1915 shipments were made in increasing amounts month by month, the total for the year reaching about 8,514 tons, with a value of 6,122 contos. In 1916 shipments rose to nearly 34,000 tons; in 1917 to over 66,000; but sales decreased after the close of the war, when contracts for supplying troops in the field ceased, and markets closed in the slump of 1921.

The first _frigorifico_ of Brazil was built by Paulista enterprise with Paulista capital, in the far north-west of São Paulo where the best pastures extend. The Companhia Frigorifica e Pastoril built its plant near the terminus of the Paulista Railway, at Barretos, and is headed by Dr. Antonio da Silva Prado, an energetic builder-up of his State and a man with many honours and interests. Opened in 1913, the _frigorifico_ first supplied chilled meat to the city of S. Paulo; export was not seriously considered until the war in Europe began with its demands upon world food supplies. The first Brazilian shipment of exported meat was sent to England in November, 1914, an experimental ton and a half. During the ensuing year that country took four thousand, three hundred and sixty tons, Italy over two thousand tons, and the United States nearly the same quantity.

The figures displayed a steady rise all through 1915, January’s ten tons being quickly outclassed by April’s two hundred and ten and June’s over five hundred and seventy tons; by November Brazil was shipping two thousand tons a month. The standard was more than maintained as time went on cattle raisers improving animals for sale to meet demands, and proving the fattening quality of Brazilian pastures. But until after the close of 1918 little blood stock could be imported, and in 1922 an expert calculation gave 12% as the proportion of fat cattle in Brazil.

The output of Barretos was speedily rivalled. In May, 1915, another packing-house started operations, at Osasco on the outskirts of S. Paulo city. It is the property of the Continental Products Company, capital and personnel originating in the Sulzberger house at Chicago, and it is independent of, but has friendly relations with, the Farquhar group of interests, which include large railway control and a thriving land and cattle company.

The Osasco plant is, like Barretos, an excellent specimen of its class, operating with fine up-to-date machinery and all modern packing-house devices; on the edge of S. Paulo city, separated from the railway only by a strip of open grassy country, this establishment has the advantage of a short haul for its meat. The São Paulo Railway has to carry the product but fifty miles to Santos port. On the other hand, the Barretos plant’s position has the advantages of being in the heart of the best cattle country, and of getting both animals and labour at low prices; the journey from Barretos to S. Paulo, by the Paulista line, takes about fourteen hours. Brazilian employees are used at both packing-houses, the industry occupying about a thousand workmen. During 1916 a third _frigorifico_ was opened, on the docks of Rio de Janeiro, but this chiefly performs cold storage functions, and before the close of 1919 ten packing-houses were in operation or building. General world depression in 1921 was responsible for the closure of most of these establishments for more than local demands. Few complaints have been registered in regard to quality so far; the Brazilian beef is on the whole smaller than that to which the meat markets are accustomed, and it was found that the quarters did not fill the space allowed for similar Argentine and Uruguayan meat when shipping first began. Dr. Prado says that the average weight of beeves slaughtered for export during the first year of operation at Barretos was only two hundred and eighty kilos. But this small, fat-less meat has a superior flavour—as anyone who travels in South America knows well.

_The Cattle Industry._

The two _frigorificos_ (packing-houses) in operation, at Barretos,
top; at Osasco, below. Also humped “zebu” cattle of Indian descent,
and, lower, a calf of native Caracú stock.
]

It is generally reckoned that ten per cent of a cattle herd is fit for the slaughterhouse: but Brazil cannot offer three million of her existing stock to the yards. She has too many varieties, probably too much of the humped breed derived from Indian ancestry, although it has warm defenders, and there is a conspicuous lack of young fat cattle. As an example of the speed with which poor stock may be improved by good, unified methods, there is Brazil’s neighbour Argentina, a country which thirty-five years ago had less than nine million head of cattle, and these of a breed inferior to the Brazilian average today. Setting about her task methodically, Argentina created a complete transformation in the character of her herds, and while exporting great quantities of meat at the same time increased her stock so largely that by the year 1910 she had thirty million head. Sums spent on breeding stock were enormous during this period: in 1906, the banner year of importation, Argentina purchased (almost exclusively from Great Britain) 2,450 pure-bred cattle, 7,500 thoroughbred sheep, and one thousand blood horses. As a result she has animals today which take prizes side by side with pure Herefords and Durhams; the average _abattoir_ price for steers is about two hundred Argentine pesos, or say eighty American dollars; she is able to record the sale of thousands of splendid creatures, amongst them a champion bull bred on her pastures which brought the price of thirty-two thousand dollars in United States currency. Today Argentina has more herds of thoroughly pure stock cattle than any other country in the world; _estancias_ full of animals of fine blood, so much alike that to see them in endless lines, with white star on breast and head, is like looking at a concrete arithmetical calculation, are handed down as inheritances. Yet when the Argentine began her work she had no such advantages of modern invention as lie to the hand of Brazil; cold storage was not commercially developed, packing-houses were immature. She had to face the competition of the United States, and world markets were not educated to the reception of South American meat. Now cold storage is an art, steamers are fitted with refrigerator space as a matter of course, South American meat is welcome on world markets, and the United States is no longer taken into consideration as a rival meat exporter.

In 1901 the United States exported 352,000,000 pounds of beef; in 1910, 76,000,000; in 1914, only a little more than 6,000,000 pounds. Argentina had caught up with her North American sister in 1905, passed and out-distanced her until she was able last year to say that her only serious competitor was Australasia. It is true that the European War has caused a revival of meat export from the United States, but home demands are today so acute that no more than a temporary reaping of high prices is at the bottom of the movement. Argentina may look for a more formidable, because a younger, rival, nearer to her northern border.

The qualifications of Brazil as a future land of fine cattle are three in the main: first, her possession of an existing _rebanho_ of 30,000,000 head; next her natural pastures and good climate which permit stock to remain in the open during the winter; third, tremendous expanses of suitable lands at moderate prices. Argentina has no natural pastures; she sows alfalfa, needs five acres of it to fatten one animal for six months and is thus at an expense of $7.50 for this purpose against Brazil’s outlay of rather less than three and one-half dollars, counting the value of the five acres of alfalfa land at three hundred dollars, the cost of twelve acres of Brazilian _capim gordura_ at one hundred and thirty-three dollars, and interest on the two investments at five per cent. In regard to available territory there is no comparison; Brazil’s one state of Matto Grosso could swallow the whole cattle-raising country of the Argentine, without taking into consideration Goyaz, Minas Geraes, S. Paulo, Paraná or Rio Grande do Sul.

Space and climate, however, are not all that goes to make a cattle country fattening fine stock, and it need scarcely be said that much must be done before the cattle lands of Brazil can seriously compete with those of the Argentine: the time is not yet ripe for the wild pastures of Goyaz and Matto Grosso to fatten cattle in the same proportion as Rio Grande State. This state, with an area of two hundred and thirty-seven thousand square kilometers feeds about nine million head of cattle, a remarkably good showing in comparison with the premier cattle province of Argentina, Buenos Aires, which, with a superficial area of not much more than 305,000 square kilometers, feeds seven and a half million head.

Pastures are not—except by careful fazendeiros—planted in Brazil because there happens to be a gift of nature in the way of natural grasses, the _capins_ of the sertão. Some of these are good, and some would feed nothing but a goat. Brazilian stock-raisers who combine earnestness with capital plant their own best grasses and appear to get satisfactory results, while I have also seen some interesting experiments made with “Soudan” or other of the wonderful varieties of grasses with which Africa is endowed. For lack of interior pastures the cattle of Brazil are periodically brought on foot for distances which may vary from a hundred to six hundred miles; many die by the way, and the unfortunate beasts are mere skin and bone when they arrive in the good grass country. On the São Paulo side of the Paraná river are some of the finest natural pastures of Brazil, but in many parts of the São Paulo uplands, interior Rio, Paraná, Santa Catharina, and Rio Grande, admirable cattle lands are to be seen. Rio Grande, especially towards the Uruguay boundary, is one of the most delightful grazing regions imaginable; Minas, too, shows some fine lush green grass lands, with the special advantage that cattle need never be put under shelter in the mild winter which visits this region. The good grass lands of Minas and interior São Paulo are frequently at an elevation of 1,400 feet, on the sloping plateau which is densely wooded near its dips to the rivers, and which is on the wide uplands covered with light _matto_ alternating with sturdy native grass. It is not unlike the high veldt of the Western Transvaal in appearance, with the same exhilarating freshness, light and space, and the same miracle of nature performed immediately after the rains, when every inch of ground is covered with little dancing flowers and every bush is transformed into a nosegay.

Brazil possesses half a dozen technical breeding “posts” maintained by State or Federal Governments, but their number is insufficient to attack the work needed, and needed quickly; private enterprise must and does supplement government labours, but there is room in Brazil for scores of expert cattlemen with knowledge of semi-tropical conditions. Three-fourths of the State of Paraná, all Santa Catharina and all Rio Grande do Sul are below the Tropic of Capricorn, but although the great sertões of Brazil are inside the tropical belt, the effect of this latitude is partly nullified by the height of the plateau to which the largest area of the country attains.

One of the best breeding stations in Brazil is situated at the good, modern, actively-managed School of Agriculture at Piracicaba, in S. Paulo State, reached by the Sorocabana line; good imported bulls are stationed here, as well as some fine specimens of types developed in Brazil, notably the Caracú, a well-formed animal with a pale buff hide that is well fitted to form the base of standardized herds. The Caracú already has its official herd-book. Some attempts made to introduce pure blood foreign animals have ended in the death of the importations, perhaps chiefly because their accustomed food was lacking; for this reason the opinion of many stock-raisers in Brazil is against efforts to create pure herds of, say, Herefords, as Argentina has done, preferring the selection of a sound national type, acclimated, hardy, which can be improved by careful breeding. Controversy rages about this question in Brazil, and without trying to enter into it I will quote the opinion of Dr. Cincinato Braga, one of Brazil’s authorities on the subject of cattle, who says that at least six thousand pure-race bulls should be imported annually to improve the existing stock, while as a matter of fact only a few hundred enter yearly, and these chiefly as a result of private enterprise. The vexed question as to whether the introduction of Indian cattle, with its resultant inheritance of a hump in the zebu type (the hump has the disadvantage of not “packing,” say some of the buyers for frigorificos), is good or bad may be safely left to those ardent cattle-breeders Drs. Pereira Barretto, Eduardo Cotrim, Assis Brasil, Fernand Ruffier, and many others; it is undoubted that in the Triangle of Minas Geraes, with its centre Uberaba, fortunes have been made from prolific Indian cattle, but public opinion remains perplexed. Writing from Minas in early 1916, J. Nogueira Itagyba told the tale of his experiences as a cattle-breeder—how he imported a bull from Holland, bought Caracú cows, obtained a young herd, and then when droughts came in 1913–14, lost “thirty or more head, under a deluge of ticks, tumours, insects of all kinds....” He then bought a Nellore (Indian) bull, obtained a breed that was “a revelation” and came to this conclusion: “In Paraná and Rio Grande, where the climate is cold and there are fine pastures, a stock breeder with capital can raise the Devon, Hereford, Flemish, Durham, Jersey, etc.; he will have appropriate forage, and can use dips and calf-foods ... but in wild rural regions only strong, acclimated races resisting climate and insect plagues can prosper.”

Until the development of the meat industry for export Brazil sold nothing abroad as the product of her vast herds except hides, just as in the early days of Texas when only the skins of her cattle were worth anything. Today the cow-hide leather industry of North America in particular is largely dependent upon South American production, the three republics of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay together furnishing fifty-five per cent of all the hides sold in world markets. Now and again the export of hides leaps for reasons that do not mean good business, as when Ceará in 1914–15 shipped out, in addition to her normal sales, the hides of animals that died of the terrible drought to the number of eight hundred thousand head; looking north to Mexico we find another big leap of hides exports after revolution invaded the cattle states, owners slaughtering their stock to avert theft by bandits.

Rise in sales by the Argentine and her neighbours since the European War has, however, been largely on account of increased slaughter in response to calls from the meat market: in two years Argentina has doubled her export of hides, Uruguay has multiplied her contribution by five, while Brazil between June, 1915 and March, 1916 shipped out thirty-seven million pounds of hides as against two and a half million pounds in a corresponding period two years previously.

The total value of Brazilian hides exported in 1915 was $13,260,000 U. S. currency; the amount was thirty-seven thousand metric tons. Of this nearly twenty thousand tons went to the United States, Great Britain taking 6,000 tons, France less than 3,000, and Uruguay 3,400 in round numbers.

War orders account for the marked stimulation of the leather business which is dependent to a considerable degree upon supplies of cattle-hides, the United States alone increasing her exports of leather from thirty-seven million dollars’ worth in 1914 to eighty million dollars’ worth in the fiscal year June 1915–16.

COTTON GROWING AND WEAVING

Cotton is native to Brazil, as to other regions of northern South America, Central America and Mexico, the south of the United States, and the West Indian islands. Wild, or carelessly cultivated Brazilian cottons are despite neglect of such excellent quality that George Watt, in _Wild and Cultivated Cotton of the World_ says that when they are properly selected and standardized they will “make Brazil as famous as Egypt in the production of excellent fibres.” North American cotton buyers, visiting Brazil early in 1916 were astonished to find cotton of long silky fibre produced here, and made arrangements for shipping quantities of the Seridó variety to the United States; England has for a very long time been a purchaser of the same fine qualities of raw cotton, for mixing, as Egyptian cotton is mixed, with the short-fibre product of the United States.

Cotton of one kind and another is grown all over Brazil. There seems to be no region which refuses to mother it. But the best lands, yielding most prolifically and with large areas suitable for cultivation on a great scale are in the centre, on the north-east promontory, and all along the coast to the mouth of the Amazon. Comparatively very small fragments of this belt are under cotton culture, although wild cotton and patches of cultivation of more or less merit are widely scattered; Todd, in his _World’s Cotton Crop_ says that Brazil “might easily grow twenty million bales, but her actual crop does not yet reach half a million bales.” Now, with the encouraging measures taken by the Brazilian Government as well as the enterprise of individual firms and planters, and the new realization of the opportunity waiting for the farmer with small capital but large technical skill, experience and good sense, cotton culture should open up great spaces of land suitable for this well-rewarding form of agriculture. Brazilian cottons or their Peruvian and West Indian kin have endowed the world with fine varieties; it remains for their standardization to benefit the land of their origin.

Cotton was used by the Aztecs for making elaborate clothes, richly dyed and embroidered, long before the Spanish Conquest in 1520. Farther south, the carvings of the Maya show that that race was using textiles hundreds of years previously—as early as the beginning of the Christian Era, if the dates assigned to the Copán and Quiriguá temples are correct. In Brazil, where the inhabitants were much less socially and industrially developed, small domestic use was made of the fibre, but it had its name, _amaniú_.

Cotton (_Gossypium_) belongs to the natural order of the malvaceas, claims more kin in the New than in the Old World, and its parents are genuine tropical dwellers; there seems to be little doubt that the first of the fine, long staple cottons introduced into North America were perennials, and that they became annuals only because they were unable to survive the winter cold. Names of cottons grown in Brazil leave the searcher after details rather hazy on account of the many local appellations given them, but the scientist has classified them by the characteristics of their seeds, dividing them into eleven kinds. The first, _Gossypium herbaceum_, is not a tropical native, was brought in from Asia both here and to the United States, is not common or successful, and so may be dismissed.

_G. mustelinum_ again “is only interesting for botanical reasons,” but is found wild in the hilly interior of Brazil; _G. punctatum_ is said to be identical with the wild cotton of the United States; _G. hirsutum_ is a true native of South America and the West Indies, and is the lineal parent of the “Uplands” cottons of North America. _G. mexicanum_ is, together with _hirsutum_, which it resembles, grown all over the coastal cotton country of Brazil; it is a small plant with a prolific yield. The writer has seen in the vicinity of Campos, State of Rio, tiny plants of this variety not more than eighteen or twenty inches high, bearing forty and more bolls and forms. It is true that the district had suffered from lack of rain and thus the tendency to run to growth rather than production, the agricultural curse of the tropics, had been checked. The field yielded over a bale to the acre.

_G. peruvianum_ is a highly interesting, hardy, prolific variety, relative of the best native cottons of Brazil. Professor Edward Green says that he considers it one of the two most valuable in the country. It is a perennial, grows best in the humid North, often reaches a height of four metres, and yields a crop for at least three years.[13] Maranhão has produced it for centuries, getting a reputation for long fine fibres on its account; the percentage of fibre is over thirty-eight per cent of the total weight of the boll, a very high average, and it is undoubtedly well adapted to the river valleys of North Brazil. It is said to be identified with the carefully cultivated, irrigated cotton of the Incas.

Cultivated forms of this excellent cotton are the famous _Mocó_, grown so successfully in Ceará, Parahyba, and other northerly states, the _Seridó_, and the _Sede de Ceará_, local names of which Brazil is proud.

_G. microcarpum_ appears to have a relationship with the _peruvianum_, and seems also to be derived from the other side of the Andes; it is credited with producing a pound of clean cotton to one hundred and twenty bolls. This is the last on the list of cotton with “fuzz” on the seeds; the remaining four varieties have clean, free seeds. Of these by far the most important is the fine _G. vitifolium_. From this stock most of the cottons described as “Sea Island” are derived, as well as the best of the Egyptian varieties, and in a genuine wild state in Brazil it still produces a beautiful long silky fibre. When grandchildren of its stock have been brought to Brazil from the United States they have rapidly degenerated, delicate nurslings of exotic temperament; beside them the old _estirpe selvagem_ flourishes and yields royally. _G. purpurescens_ is another black-seeded perennial, identified with the “Bourbon” of Porto Rico, and said to owe its introduction into Brazil to the French. _G. barbadense_ is a blood-brother of the _vitifolium_, and like all the Sea Island-Egyptian group, is a highly esteemed producer of top-priced cotton. The fourth of this class is _G. brasiliense_, a true native, observed growing wild by Jean Lery as early as 1557.

The two most precious of the list, _Gossypium peruvianum_ and _Gossypium vitifolium_, possess the advantage of being genuine South Americans; they form a magnificent stock from which the expert cotton grower can develop a product for the market which need not fear Sea Island as a rival.

Cultivation of cotton by the Portuguese colonists began very soon after the granting of the capitanias in 1530. By the year 1570 large crops were being produced in Bahia, chief centre of industrial activity, although they could not equal sugar in value. Europe was just beginning to use this material, for with the acquisition of strips of India by the Portuguese there was an entry into European markets of Calicut “calico.” Before this dawn of the cotton era Europe went clothed in leather, wool, and, on occasions of great splendour, silk. We may conclude that the clothing of the day was probably as comfortable as, and certainly more substantial than, garments of the present period, if not as sanitary: but cleanliness had not yet become a virtue. India taught Europe the use of cotton, and the spindles and looms of the ladies were filled with the vegetable fibre in lieu of wool.

In Pernambuco the culture of cotton became of more importance than sugar; farther south the Paulistas set their Indian slaves to work and were soon producing cotton crops on widely spread plantations. In the seventeenth century cotton was carried into Minas Geraes by the gold hunting bandeirantes, but it was only cultivated in the most desultory manner and when there was nothing else for the slaves to do. So complete indeed was disregard of all agricultural work that actual famines occurred in 1697–98 and in 1700–01 on account of the abandonment of plantations for gold-washing districts.

When the Marquis de Pombal practically ruled the destinies of Portugal good fortune led him to take a shrewd interest in Brazil; especially interested in the comparatively new settlements at Pará and Maranhão, and struck by the fine fibre exported from these northerly regions, he decided upon the establishment of spinning and weaving mills. In 1750 the Marquis de Tavora was given the task of engaging expert weavers for the colonies, and shortly afterwards the first cotton-cloth factories were set up in Brazil. Pombal’s fatherly interest in weaving did not extend to the south; these sections of the country should devote their time to mining and agriculture, he thought, and finding that looms were being set up all along the coast and in the interior of Minas—always a good cotton region—he passed a law in 1766 prohibiting cotton and silk weaving. It had the desired effect of checking the development of any considerable commerce, but did not prevent the use of hand looms in almost every farm, where a patch of cotton was as much a part of the crop as a field of maize. In a _relatorio_ of 1779 the Viceroy Luis de Vasconcellos reported to Lisbon on the “independence of the people of Minas of European goods, establishing looms and factories in their own _fazendas_, and making cloth with which they clothe themselves and their families and slaves....”

In 1785 the Portuguese Government ordered the suppression of all factories in Brazil; they must have been considerably advanced, despite the previous orders, if the decree abolishing establishments for making “ribbons, laces of gold or silver velvets, satins, taffetas, bombazine, printed calico, fustian,” etc., etc., meant anything. In spite of this the weaving of coarse cottons managed to survive, perhaps with the connivance of sympathetic Viceroys, and repeated letters emphasized the inconvenience of factories in Brazil: a _carta regia_ of 1802 instructed the Governor of Minas Geraes not to allow “anyone to present himself before him unless dressed in materials manufactured in the Kingdom or the Asiatic dominions.”

The transference of the Portuguese monarchy to Brazil in 1808 changed all these ideas—which helps to demonstrate the still burning need for all rulers, of whatever denomination, to take a travelling course—and in a few years cotton threads and cloths were freed from duties, the Prince Regent sent a master-weaver at his own expense to set up _fabricas_ in the interior, and by 1820 the industry was thriving. Cotton growing was equally stimulated at this period by high prices in England; in 1818 that country was not only buying raw cotton, but cotton cloth, from Brazil.

With the development of the south of the United States in cotton production on a great scale a shadow fell over the Brazilian industry. Unable to compete with the low prices at which North America offered her bales in the early eighteen-forties the farmers of the southerly states of Brazil checked their planting, and, coffee just then dawning upon them as a commercial possibility, filled up the empty spaces in the fields with the beans of _coffea arabica_. North Brazil, with its special cottons of long staple, kept on producing these varieties for home mills, steadily at work, and for European export; a new incentive came with the Civil War of the United States when Confederate cotton shipments were contraband and English spinners were at their wits’ end for raw material, but prices sank with the declaration of peace.

Since the beginning of the present century Brazilian exports of, and prices received for, national cotton have varied so remarkably that it is worth while glancing at the statistics; almost the whole of the export of this raw cotton, and of cotton seed, went to England. If in addition to this export we reckon about fifty thousand tons as the amount consumed by the factories of the country, the whole production of Brazil can never have exceeded ninety thousand tons.

_Year_ _Tons_ _Value in Gold Milreis_
1902 32,137 10,701 contos (one conto equals 1000 milreis)
1903 28,235 11,766 „
1904 13,262 7,347 „
1905 24,081 10,291 „
1906 31,668 14,726 „
1907 38,036 15,418 „
1908 3,565 1,833 „
1909 9,968 5,261 „
1910 11,160 7,934 „
1911 14,647 8,714 „
1912 16,774 9,221 „
1913 37,423 20,513 „
1914 30,434 16,556 „
1915 5,223 2,551 „

Exports almost vanished, to 1000 tons, in 1916, not recovering fully until 1920, when 25,000 tons were shipped.

What measures are being taken in Brazil to develop cotton culture? First let us take into consideration new governmental means of assisting the industry. When the drought of 1914–15 scorched up northern plantations the weavers found themselves paying higher prices inside Brazil than the same national cotton was bringing in Liverpool. The Centro Industrial, a very strong and useful body, asked the Government to hold an enquiry, and the also extremely powerful Centro do Commercio e Industria of São Paulo made the suggestion that duties against imported cotton should be remitted so that the mills could get cheap supplies of foreign material. Remarking on the situation the _Gazeta de Noticias_ of Rio said: “On one side we have the cotton planting industry declaring that it will face certain extinction if the door is opened to foreign raw material; on the other is the weaving industry declaring that it must shut its doors if it is not permitted to buy from foreign markets!”

The Federal Government only temporarily remitted dues, believing that the situation would remedy itself with the new crop—rain fell copiously at last in the scourged districts, and Ceará alone foretold a cotton crop of twelve thousand tons for 1916—but prepared to consider measures to open up larger areas of country to this culture. A project submitted to the Legislature at the end of 1915 suggested the construction of good cart roads in cotton districts, and the establishment of modern gins at convenient points, at the expense of the Government.

Already, three years ago, the Government had acquired the services of Professor Edward Green, a cotton expert from the United States who has been working with the double object of classifying and standardizing the best cottons for plantation in Brazil, and of noting the best regions for such plantations. At the _Conferencia Algodoeira_ (Cotton Conference) held in Rio under the auspices of the Centro da Industria in June, 1916, Professor Green gave an address dealing with some phases of his labours, and concluded by saying:

“After three years of observation and experiment in Brazil I am convinced that this country, above any other, possesses excellent natural conditions for cotton production, and that the development of this great national resource depends only upon the adoption of a few simple measures:

“1. The selection and standardization of superior types, and
the production of great quantities of selected seeds for
distribution.

“2. Introduction of simple, animal-drawn cultivators, with practical
instruction on their use to be given to large planters of cotton
in the interior.

“3. Stimulation by the Government of all activities related to the
cotton industry, and suspension for some years of all connected
taxes and duties.

“Extensive propaganda in favor of cotton growing is being animated by the far-seeing and incomparable activity of Dr. Miguel Calmon. If this work is continued in all parts of the country where cotton is cultivated there is no doubt of success. The cotton production of Brazil will find itself doubled if not quadrupled in a short time, and this country will take the high place in world markets which is legitimately hers as the greatest exporter of high-class cotton.”

Both Federal and State Governments have brought technical experts from foreign countries to help in the solution of Brazilian problems; the Directorship of the Jardim Botanico in Rio, where a series of valuable experiments in tropical agriculture were carried out, was for some time in the hands of an English expert, Dr. John Willis, who brought his knowledge of Ceylon and Malaysia to bear upon Brazilian conditions; the work of the eminent Swiss, Dr. Emil Goeldi, on the Amazon, succeeded by the labours of Dr. Jacques Huber, have been invaluable in regard to classification of North Brazilian natural plants and their adaptation to commercial uses, as well as the introduction of suitable tropical fruits, etc., from other regions. The Ministry of Agriculture in Rio is the centre of much live work, and has had a series of excellent men at its head. The brilliant Pedro de Toledo was neither the first nor the last of agricultural devotees in this post.