June 17, 1911 



HORTICULTURE 



881 



SOUTH AMERICAN FLORICUL- 

 TURE. 

 A paper read before the N. Y. Florists' 

 Club by J. McHutchlson. 



The title "South American Floricul- 

 ture" is a misnomer. There isn't 

 much floriculture in countries where 

 orchids hang from every large tree. 

 In the forest, every small garden con- 

 tains a hot-house assortment of plants 

 and the most magnificent palms and 

 flowering plants line the streets of 

 every city. You get enough of floricul- 

 ture during the week. Tonight you 

 can forget you are florists and come 

 with me through a few South Ameri- 

 can countries. 



The trip I took was a 10-weeks' 

 cruise in the Hamburg-American Line 

 steamer Blucher. There were 214 of 

 us in the party — mostly widows and 

 bachelors — and they had about every 

 convenience on board except a matri- 

 monial agency. January 21st, the day 

 We left New York, was an unhappy 

 mixture of fog, rain and cold. Three 

 days later overcoats were discarded, 

 light clothes brought out and we were 

 looking over the rail at the flying 

 fishes. 



Six days after leaving New York we 

 were in Barbadoes, called sometimes 

 "Little England," in British West In- 

 dies. We had been passing the Carib- 

 bean Islands the whole day previous- 

 ly, though it was too dark to see Mar- 

 tinique where Mt. Pelee destroyed the 

 city of St. Pierre and did so much 

 damage a few years ago. Barbadoes 

 is beautiful. Ninety per cent of the 

 people are black. It is the most 

 densely populated place on earth — 

 200,000 inhabitants in an area of 166 

 square miles. We drove through ave- 

 nues lined with cocoanut palms and 

 mahogany trees with the flaming Hi- 

 biscus, blue Plumbago and Bougain- 

 villea brightening up the roadside gar- 

 dens. The principal products are 

 sugar cane, cotton, tobacco and so 

 forth. 



We crossed the equator on January 

 31st with appropriate ceremonies. The 

 ship's crew were dressed up in fanci- 

 ful costumes and the men passengers 

 and crew who had not crossed the line 

 before, were lathered with a white- 

 wash brush, shaved with a two-foot 

 razor, imaginary teeth were pulled and 

 salt water pills given to them; they 

 were then smothered with toilet pow- 

 der, and, thrown over backwards into 

 a 5-foot salt-water tank, he finally es- 

 capes through a canvas tube with a 

 two-iuch stream of water on his rear 

 to facilitate his passage. 



Pernambuco is an ordinary Brazil- 

 ian city with a population of 200,000. 

 It exports sugar principally. It has 

 a busy harbor inside the coral reef 

 that lines the Brazilian coast for hun- 

 dreds of miles. 



February 2nd we were at Santos, a 

 port with vast shipping activities. Bra- 

 zil furnishes about 80 per cent of the 

 world's coffee supply and most of this 

 is shipped from Santos by German 

 and English firms. It used to be the 

 most unhealthy city imaginable. 

 Across the river from Santos on the 

 flats at one time lay over 100 good 

 ships, their crews dead and no other 

 sailors would run the risk of taking 

 them out. This place was called "the 

 graveyard." Men died there of fevers 

 like flies. Now all is changed. The 

 graveyard has been destroyed, the 

 fevers have gone, and the city is now 



as healthy as the other Brazilian 

 cities. 



From Santos we went to San Pauli. 

 How many North Americans ever 

 heard of San Pauli? Yet it is the 

 cradle of Brazilian independence and 

 the most modern city in Brazil, with 

 a population of 400,000, with broad 

 tree-lined avenues, monumental public 

 buildings and handsome residences. 

 Their open trolley cars were made 

 from St. Louis models. The avenues 

 are in most instances lined with cof- 

 fee trees, the Australian silky oak 

 and the beautiful Jacaranda mimosa- 

 folia which grows with us in southern 

 California. The municipal opera house 

 there is a beautiful building — built and 

 owned by the city. It cost about 8,- 

 000,000 United States dollars and is, I 

 think, finer than the famous Paris 

 opera house. 



I ought not to pass here without 

 mentioning the San Pauli R. R., which 

 covers the sixty miles between Santos 

 and San Pauli, climbing 3600 feet up 

 the face of the mountains. I never 

 saw a railroad like it. It is mostly 

 tunnels and viaducts and there isn't 

 a square foot that is not waterproofed 

 and that is something when you con- 

 sider that the average rainfall is 11 

 feet per year and 10 inches of water 

 has fallen within 24 hours. The rail- 

 road was built and is owned by the 

 British and English rolling stock is 

 used. Its profits are over 40 per cent 

 a year, but Brazilian laws prevent 

 more than 7 per cent, being paid in 

 dividends, so all surplus goes into un- 

 necessarily fine stations and improve- 

 ments. 



We reached Montevideo, the capital 

 of Uruguay, in the teeth of a pampas 

 storm, but that soon went down and 

 we visited Villa Delores, a large pri- 

 vate zoo, and drove through the many 

 beautiful parks and boulevards large- 

 ly planted with Eucalyptus and other 

 Australian trees. We were there two 

 days and there was not a single revo- 

 lution recorded during that time, 

 though one cropped up a few days 

 later. 



Now we enter the Straits of Magel- 

 lan and after staying a day at Punta 

 Arenos, the southernmost town in the 

 world, we continue through the straits, 

 going out of our course to get into the 

 sounds, the glaciers and fjords rival- 

 ling those of Norway and Alaska. In 

 one place where we anchored five gla- 

 ciers were within two miles of us and 

 coming to the water's edge, the blue 

 ice glistening in the sun. The chan- 

 nel is about 400 miles long, very nar- 

 row and dangerous in places for we 

 saw many wrecks on the banks, the 

 mountains on either side often lined 

 with snow, but we have to keep hust- 

 ling to get up the west coast as far 

 as Valparaiso. 



This is a cosmopolitan city and the 

 principal seaport of Chile. Its popu- 

 lation increased 100 per cent within 

 the last two years while New York 

 gained only 48 per cent. There are 

 still some evidences of the earthquake 

 that visited them a few years ago. 

 Chile is called the shoe-string repub- 

 lic, because it has coast line of 2600 

 miles and an average width of only 

 150 miles. Santiago is its capital city. 

 Like all South American cities, it is 

 made as a fit place to live in. Too 

 bad our cities are not built on the 

 same principle. In Santiago and Val- 

 paraiso the street car conductors are 



mostly women. Santiago is built on a 

 plain, surrounded by mountains. Right 

 in the center of the city is a rocky 

 mountain called Santa Lucia. It has 

 been landscaped and beautified with 

 statues and hanging gardens. From 

 the top at sunset, we get a fine view 

 of the pinnacled snowclad peaks of 

 the Andes with the sun shining on 

 them after the city is in darkness. 

 It has not rained in Chile for two 

 years, though the Aconcaqua Valley 

 beats anything I ever saw for pro- 

 ductiveness, not even excepting the 

 Compagna in Italy. 



The famous Trans-Andean railroad 

 is a marvel of constructive engineer- 

 ing. It runs from Valparaiso, Chile, 

 to Buenos Ayres and we crossed it 

 from end to end. Its mountain scen- 

 ery is grand and we pass at the feet 

 of Mt. Aconcaqua, 23,200 feet, which 

 makes it the highest mountain in the 

 western hemisphere. Still, I do not 

 think that the scenery from the train 

 is any finer than in many parts of 

 Switzerland or over the Canadian 

 Rockies on the C. P. R. R. 



By going under the central peaks 

 of the Andes in the tunnel, we pass 

 under the boundary line between 

 Chile and the Argentine. You will 

 remember that a few years ago these 

 two countries were on the verge of 

 war, but a settlement was reached by 

 King Edward's arbitration. The two 

 countries then built a monumental 

 statue of Christ, "The Christ of the 

 Andes," and placed it in the pass, right 

 on the boundary line amid the ever- 

 lasting snows and on the tablet is 

 this beautiful inscription: "Sooner 

 shall these mountains crumble into 

 duFt than the people of Argentine and 

 Ctiile break the peace which they have 

 sworn to maintain at the feet of 

 Christ the Redeemer," and let me tell 

 you, gentlemen, that those two nations 

 will never fight while that statue 

 stands there. 



It takes from daylight to dark to 

 cross the Andes from Los Andes to 

 Mendoza, which is all made on narrow 

 gauge, then all night and all the next 

 day we cross the pampas of the Ar- 

 gentine as level as a billiard table 

 and not a hill in sight for 600 miles 

 and very few trees, but there are cat- 

 tle, horses, sheep and ostriches on 

 both sides of the track and thousands 

 of scarlet flamingoes in the water. 1 

 never saw so many cattle before. In 

 one place the track runs along for 175 

 miles without a curve. What a con- 

 trast after crossing the Andes! 



Buenos Avres, meaning "Good Airs," 

 is a modern city of 1,400,000 people. 

 In beautiful parks, boulevards and 

 plazas it surpasses either Paris or 

 Berlin. The climate is warm and 

 pleasant and in the afternoons the 

 business men drive through the beau- 

 tiful gardens and boulevards in Span- 

 ish style, for the language and life 

 of the people is Spanish. It would 

 take me an hour to tell you much 

 about this fine city. Its avenues, pla- 

 zac, and boulevards are not duplicated 

 in the United States. Their capitol 

 building is finer than ours in Wash- 

 ington. Their custom house is finer 

 thnn our New York one. We went 

 through the famous newspaper office. 

 La Prenza. In the parks they have 

 whole avenues lined with 40-foot 

 palms. I saw specimens of Phoenix 

 canariensis as high and broad as a 

 five-story building and furnished to 



