THE COTTON INDUSTRY IN BRAZIL. 671 



ter or wet season, rich soil and long, wet winters producing more 

 weeds and requiring more attention. So far as tillage is con- 

 cerned, this chopping out of the weeds and sprouts is the nearest 

 approximation to cultivation the plants receive, and the soil natu- 

 rally becomes as hard as a brick. 



Insects. — While Brazil is the home of the cotton plant, it is 

 at the same time the home of insects affecting that plant. Besides 

 the " cotton-worm " {Aletia argellacea), which occurs in that coun- 

 try at times in vast swarms very much as it does in the Southern 

 States, there are other moths whose larvse attack the cotton in a 

 similar manner. The "boll- worm" {Heliothis armigera) is also a 

 native of Brazil, and occasionally does great injury to the cotton 

 crop. But, while these insects exist in Brazil under climatic con- 

 ditions more favorable to their multiplication than are those of 

 the United States, these favorable circumstances are offset very 

 materially by the vast number of insect enemies which these same 

 climatic conditions foster. As a rule, the Brazilian planter feels 

 himself utterly at the mercy of Fate when the " cotton-worms " 

 attack his crop. N"o remedies for the evil are known, and none are 

 ever attempted. They seem to think that to combat the plague 

 would be to " fly in the face of Providence " ; that when God wishes 

 it stopped he'll send rains and stop it himself. The percentage of 

 loss through these insects varies greatly, but I have known of 

 many instances of a loss of fifty per cent of the crop. Such a loss, 

 however, is unusually large for that country. 



Picking. — Cotton-picking does not assume the importance in 

 Brazil that it does in the Southern United States. Fields are 

 never large, and picking is done more at the leisure and conven- 

 ience of the planter. With the varieties of tree cotton there is but 

 little risk of loss in leaving the ripe cotton in the bolls longer 

 than could be done with the herbaceous variety, for the seeds of 

 the former, being more compact when they ripen, do not cause the 

 fiber to thrust the mass in a loose flock from the boll, as is the 

 case with the latter. The cotton-pickers carry baskets or bags 

 with them, in which the cotton is placed as it is gathered, very 

 much as is the custom in this country. 



Ginning. — What kind of a gin to use has been a question of 

 importance among Brazilian planters. The question was not be- 

 tween the various kinds of saw-gins, but between saw-gins and 

 the old-fashioned way of cleaning cotton with two small wooden 

 cylinders revolving close to each other. 



The roller-gin is simply two short wooden cylinders, less than 

 an inch in diameter, geared together and revolved close to each 

 other after the fashion of a modern clothes-wringer. The raw cot- 

 ton is fed slowly between the cylinders, and the seeds are removed 

 by being pinched from the cotton and thrust back on the side from 



