RANCHLANDS 111 



of failure going side by side with the larger 

 stream of success. Unless there is revolution- 

 ary disorder and anarchy, the future holds for 

 southern Brazil much what half a century ago 

 the future held for large portions of our country 

 lying west of the Mississippi. 



In southern Brazil the forest landscape 

 through which w^e passed was very beautiful. 

 The most conspicuous tree in the forest was the 

 flat-topped pine, the shaft of which rose like 

 that of a royal palm. The branches spread 

 out at the top just where the palm-leaves 

 spread out on the palm, only instead of droop- 

 ing they curved upw^ard like the branches of a 

 candelabra. There were many other trees in 

 the forests which I could not recognize or place. 

 Some of them looked like our Southern live- 

 oaks. Then there were palms, and multitudes 

 of big tree-ferns. In places where these tree- 

 ferns grew thickly among the tall, strange can- 

 delabra pines, with palms scattered here and 

 there, and other queer ancient tropical plants, 

 the landscape looked as if it had come out of 

 the carboniferous period — at least as the car- 

 boniferous period was represented in the at- 

 tractive popular geologies of my youth. There 

 were flowers in the woods, of brilliant and 

 varied hue, although we saw but few orchids; 



