A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



Maize is often planted in rows in the midst of other crops — cotton, 

 for example — which has the advantage that the vermin that injure 

 either crop are prevented from spreading by the other. Maize may 

 also be planted alternately with black beans. 



We now come to four very important plants, which yield beverages 

 in general use. In southern Brazil, particularly in Rio Grande do 

 Sul, an excellent grape is grown. I have always drunk the red wine 

 of the country with appreciation ; it is not so heavy as the Mendo^as 

 of the Argentine, which is as heady as the Spanish vintages, but is 

 an excellent table wine, and retains the flavour of the grape in 

 unusual purity. 



Cocoa has been cultivated in America from of old, and before 

 the coming of the Spaniards was grown from Mexico to Peru; 

 indeed the words "cocoa" and "chocolate" are of Mexican origin. 

 In Brazil the great cocoa-growing State is Bahia, for the cocoa-tree 

 is a tropical plant, and indeed a denizen of the forest, and even 

 to-day it is found growing wild in the "inundation forests" of 

 Amazonas and Orinoco. This tree, then, rising to a height of some 

 thirty feet, with its glossy leaves and fleshy fruits growing out of 

 the trunk — like a lemon in shape, but much larger, containing 

 within the almond-shaped cocoa-beans — must be grown in the 

 shade. It is first planted under bananas, but when the shoots attain 

 a certain height they must be protected by the shade of taller trees, 

 preferably those of the Leguminosae family. Climbing plants, too — 

 namely, vanilla-vines — are grown in the wood, so that a cocoa- 

 plantation excels all others in beauty. During my stay in Ceylon I 

 took the greatest delight in the sight of the cocoa-woods ; when the 

 rays of sunlight drifting through the pinnate foliage of the shade- 

 trees fell on the great leaves of the cocoa-trees their colour often 

 reminded me of the autumn foliage of our European trees. The 

 beans are first subjected to a process of fermentation, and then 

 dried, after which half the fat contained in the beans is expressed, 

 and exported as cocoa-butter. 



Chinese tea, which the Brazilians call Indian tea, Che da India, is 

 grown only in the Organ Mountains and about Sao Paulo. A more 

 important article of commerce is mate or Paraguay tea, the leaf of 

 a tree indigenous to southern Brazil, Paraguay and the Argentine. 

 This tree belongs to the Holly genus. It is a slender tree of no great 

 height, which grows wild so profusely in the forests of the countries 

 named that it has not yet been cultivated to any great extent. The 

 twigs are cut oflf, drawn through a fire, and dried in the smoke. The 



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