October i, 1882.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



333 



theee returns do not iuclnde Travanoore and Cochin, 

 although the figures from these districts will not 

 greatly alfect the tea statistics of the Presidency, we 

 suppose. We should have liked to have Been the 

 returns more complete ; some idea of the size of the 

 estates might have been conveyed. At present a large 

 Dumber of very small gardens must be included, or 

 the Wynaad estates would not be entered as numbering 

 over 14,OU0 for an area of 58,652 acres of coffee.— 

 M. Mail. 



DEVELOPEMENT OF THE AMAZON : 



HUtlAR, COFrEE A>.'D NEW PRODUCTS. 



(From the South A/nerican Journal,) 



We have for some time endeavoured to call atten- 

 tion to ihe great facilities presented by this immense 

 inland navigation, if properly developed, and rendered 

 more available to external commerce. In another part 

 of our paper will be found allusion to a pamphlet 

 lately issued by Senhor Pimenta Biieno, upon the 

 culture of India rubber, and the evils arising from 

 neglect of this most valuable commodity, which re- 

 quires to be more under control if it is not to fall 

 into decadence and eventual ruin from the reckless 

 manner the trees are dealt with. 



Professor Agassiz, who paid a lengthened visit to 

 Brazil during the winter of 1865, and devoted a large 

 portion of his interesting volume, published in 1868, 

 to an account of an exploration of the Amazon, more 

 extensive probably than by any writer who has 

 preceded him as regards its facilities, thus expresses 

 the general impression made upon him : — 



" I have never been able to explain quite to my 

 own satisfaction the somewhat meUincholy impression 

 which this region, lonely as it unquestionably is, 

 made upon me when I first saw it — an impression 

 not wholly destroyed by a longer residence. Perhaps 

 it is the general aspect of incompleteness and dec^y, 

 the absence of energy and enterprize making the lavish 

 gifts of nature of no avail. In the midst of a country 

 that sh uld be overflowing with agricultural products 

 neither milk nor butter, nor cheese, nor vegetables, 

 nor fruit, are to be had. You constantly hear people 

 complain of the difficulty of procuring the commonest 

 articles of domestic consumption, when, in fact, they 

 ought to be produced by every landowner. The agri- 

 cultural districts of Brazil are rich and fertile, but 

 there is no agricultural population. The tamed Indian 

 floating about in bis canoe, the only home to which 

 he has a genuine attachment, never striking root in 

 the soil, has no geuius for cultivating the ground." 



Speaking of the productions of s-ugai and coffee, rather 

 a singular illustration is aftorded of the want of ap- 

 preciation in which Brazil coffee has been held in 

 foreign countries to remedy which laudable efforts are 

 now ueing made in this country. 



Mr. Agassiz says : — '' The sugar cane has long being 

 the chief object of cultivation in Brazil, and the produc- 

 tion of fugar is still eoneiderable ; but within several 

 years the planting of sugar cane has given way to that of 

 colTee. I have taken pains to ascertain the facts respect- 

 ing the cultivation of coffee during the last fifty years ; 

 the immense development of this branch of industry 

 and the rapidity of the movement, especially in a 

 country where labour is so scarce, is amongst the 

 most striking economical phenomena of the country. 

 Thanks to their perseverance and to the favourable 

 conditions presented by the conetitution of their soil, 

 Ihe Brazilians have obtained a kind of monopoly of 

 coffee. More than .half the coffee consumed in the 

 woi-ld is of Brazilian growth. And yet the coffee of 

 Brazil has little reputation, and is even greatly under- 

 rated. Why is this ? Simply because a great deal 

 of the best produce of Brazilian plantations is sold 

 under the name of Java and Mocha, or as the coSiee of 



Martinique or Bourbon. Martinique produces only 

 six hundred sacks of coffee anuually, Guadeloupe, whose 

 coffee is sold under the name of the neighbouring 

 islands, yields six thousand sticks, not enough to 

 provide the market of Kio de .Janeiro for twenty-fonr 

 hours, and the Island of Hourbnn hardly more- A 

 gre.it part of the coffee which is bought under these 

 names, or under th.it of Java coffee, is Bnizilian, 

 while the so called Mocha cntfee is often nothing but 

 the small round bean of the Brazilian plant found 

 at the summit of the branches and very carefully 

 selected. If the fazendeiro, like the Java planters, 

 sold the crops under a special mark, the great pur- 

 chasers would learn with what merchandize i hey have 

 to deal, and the agriculture would be greatly bene- 

 fitted. But there intervenes between the fazendeiro 

 and the e.\ porter a class of merchants — half bankers, 

 half brokers — known as commissarios, who, by mixing 

 different harvests, lower the standard of the crop, 

 thus relieving the producer of all responsibility, and 

 depriving the product of its true characteristics." 



This state of things is about to be rectified, 

 and herealter Brazil coffee will stand more on its 

 real merits.* 



Professor Agassiz, after drawing striking picture^ 

 of the griat advantages the Amazon valley presents 

 to the Empire and the delusions that prevail as to the 

 injurious nature of the climate, concludes his remarks 

 witii the following additional notice of its produc- 

 tions : — " The importance of the Basin of the Amazon to 

 Bazil from an industrial point of view can hardly 

 be over estimated. Its woods alone have an almost 

 priceless value. Nowhere in the world is there finer 

 timber, either for solid constructions or for works of 

 ornament, and yet it is scarcely used even for the local 

 buildings, and makes no part whatever of the exports. 

 It is strange that the development of this branch of 

 industry should not even have begun in Brazil for the 

 rivers which flow past these magnificent forests seem 

 meant to serve, fu'st as a water power for the saw mills 

 which ought to be established along their borders, and 

 then as a means of transportation for the material so 

 provided. Setting aside the woods as timber, what shall 

 I say of the mass of fruit, resin, oils, colouring matter, 

 textile fibres which they yield. When I stopped at Para, on 

 my way to the United States, an exhibition of Amazonian 

 products, brought together in preparation for the World's 

 Fan' at Paris, was still open. Much as I had admii'ed, 

 duiTng my journey, the richness and variety of the 

 materials native to the soil, I was amazed when I saw 

 them side by side. I here noticed among others, a 

 collection of no less than one himcb'ed and seventeen 

 kinds of highly valuable wood, cut from a piece of land 

 less than half a mile square. Of these many were 

 dark coloiu'ed, veined woods, susceptible of a high polish — 

 as beautiful as rosewood or ebony. There was a gi'eat 

 variety of oUs, all remarkable for theii- clearness and 

 purity. • There were a number of fabrics made from the 

 fibres of the palm, and an endless variety of fruits. An 

 Empu-e might esteem itself rich in any one of the sources 

 of industiy which abound in this valley, and yet the 

 greater part of its vast gi'owth rots on the ground, and 

 goes to form a little more river mud, or to stain the 

 waters on the shores of which its manifold products die 

 and decompose. But what smqnized me most was to 

 find that a great part of this region was favourable to 

 the raising of cattle. Fine sheep are fed on the grassy 

 plains and on the hills which stretch between Ohydos 

 and Almeyrim, and I have rarely eaten better mutton 



* Its " real merits " will be rated in the future as they 

 were in the past by the extent to which the "cherries" are 

 allowed to ripen on the trees, and the care bestowed on 

 the preparation. It has been because of beans gathered 

 prematurely and badly prepared that Kio coffee has held 

 low rank.— Ed.] 



