882 



HORTICULTURE 



June 17, 1911 



the ground. Everything has the ap- 

 pearance of newness in their bright 

 sunshine. Even their famous Avenue 

 Mayo is only four years old, lined with 

 buildings of uniform height and archi- 

 tecture. Their four miles of splendid 

 docks have been reclaimed from the- 

 Rio de la Plata and are always filled 

 with numbers of large steamers flying 

 the flag of every maritime nation — ex- 

 cept the Stars and Stripes. 



On March 11th we arose at 6 a. m. 

 to see the entrance of Rio de Janeiro 

 harbor. Huge granite rocks, one of 

 them called the sugarloaf, guard the 

 entrance on either side like sentinels, 

 the city lining the various bays oa 

 the left. The entrance is so narrow 

 that its discoverer called it the "River 

 of January," but it widens out to a 

 very large bay, dotted with beautiful 

 islands. Nature seems to have ex- 

 hausted its resources in making this 

 harbor and the Brazilians have fol- 

 lowed suit by making their capitil 

 city worthy of its harbor. There are 

 avenues lined with four rows of royal 

 palms 80 feet high and the Ave miles 

 of gardens and boulevards along the 

 half-moon shaped Botofoga Bay cost 

 them 40,000,000 American dollars and 

 every dollar counts. From Corcovadi 

 — a 2300-foot rock with a perpendicu- 

 lar drop of 1500 feet— you look right 

 down upon this city of 900,000 people 

 spreading itself out among the valleys 

 and slopes of the mountains. All 

 ships anchor in the bay, for these ar- 

 tistic people want their water front 

 for gardens and pleasure. 



We read in our papers here about 

 six months ago of the naval mutiny 

 at Rio. Well it was the real thing. 

 Most of the naval buildings are 

 on Cobras Island and they are 

 still standing, riddled with shell 

 holes. The men who mutinied 

 on the warships bombarded 

 these buildings, then surrendered 

 and the men in the barracks, not 

 knowing it, then revolted and the new 

 dreadnoughts trained their 12-iuch 

 guns on the island and nearly blew it 

 off the map. It impressed us as show- 

 ing what these people thought of their 

 city that neither the mutineers nor the 

 government flred a shot at the city it- 

 self. The battleships lay there still 

 but the breachlocks of the guns have 

 been removed, they are only half- 

 manned, and while these dreadnoughts, 

 the San Pauli and Minas Ceraes, are 

 about the largest and most modern 

 afloat, they could not even answer our 

 salute. 



The Botanical Gardens of Rio are 

 famed the world over and rightly so, 

 too. I spent nearly a whole day there. 

 One avenue of royal palms dividing 

 the gardens is half a mile long. There 

 are avenues 20 ft. wide so embowered 

 with bamboos that not sufficient light 

 gets into them to take a photograph. 

 Other avenues are lined with Areca 

 lutescens and all kind of tropical 

 plants, for there are over 800 varieties 

 there. What beautiful places these 

 South Americans have to spend after- 

 noons or Sundays in with their chil- 

 dren! Most of the consulates are at 

 Petropolis, about 40 miles up in the 

 mountains from Rio. The U. S. Con- 

 sulate there is almost as good a build- 

 ing as the Portuguese, which is more 

 than can be said of some places. We 

 stayed only a short time at Bahia. 

 There is an upper and lower city. It 

 Is the diamond market of Brazil but 



we want to push on to Para, 105 miles 

 up one of the tributaries of the mighty 

 Amazon. 



Para is the principal port for rubber 

 and other products of the vast country 

 watered by the Amazon and its tribu- 

 taries. Here we see tropical vegeta- 

 tion in all its luxuriance. I dug up gor- 

 geous colored caladiums growing be- 

 tween the trolley tracks. Bananas 

 gi-ow wild everywhere. Anything will 

 grow there. In Para I saw trees 7 to 8 

 feet high growing out of a church 

 spire.' A house with a thatched roof 

 collects dried leaves and in a few 

 months there are trees growing on the 

 roof. In the botanical gardens in Para 

 we saw the trees which produce the 

 rubber of commerce. It's not a Ficus 

 elastica but has a small narrow leaf 

 lii:e Eucalyptus and it's certainly a 

 money-maker for Brazil. You have 

 heard of the floating islands of the 

 Xmazon; a snag gets stuck in the 

 river, it dams back leaves and 

 branches, then seeds germinate and 

 trees grow on it and when a freshet 

 comes down the river out goes the 

 island. In the rainy season the Ama- 

 zon sometimes rises 40 and Go feet and 

 floods the country for thousands of 

 miles. It is truly a mighty river — and 

 a peculiar one, as it doesn't confine it- 

 self to one stream. No one can truly 

 say they have seen the Amazon but 

 only a part of it, for you have to go 

 1000 miles up to get into one stream 

 and by then you have passed where 

 many of its largest tributaries enter. 

 The Amazon is really a series of lakes 

 and swamps connected by rivers. Its 

 mouths where it enters the ocean are 

 150 miles wide. Steamers of 6000 tons 

 go up 1000 miles to Manoes and 2000- 

 ton steamers can go 2000 miles. Alto- 

 gether in the Amazon and its tributa- 

 ries there are over 40,000 miles of nav- 

 igable waters. 



We stopped at Trinidad long enough 

 to see the Botanical Gardens there and 

 to visit the lake of pitch 40 miles away. 

 This is the seventh wonder of the 

 world. It comes out of the lake just as 

 you see it in barrels and though it is 

 exported in large quantities, the lake 

 never grows less. Sometimes pieces 

 of wood come up with the pitch and it 

 is a curious fact that the wood does 

 not grow on the island and in no place 

 nearer than the mainland. 



We dropped in at St. Thomas in 

 the Danish West Indies and took a 

 stroll through cocoanut groves and 

 looked over the castles of the old time 

 pirates who made St. Thomas their 

 rendezvous in the old days. We passed 

 Porto Rico and five days later came 

 up New York harbor in a fog so thick 

 that the city was barely visible. 



We felt like millionaires in Brazil. 

 Their language is Portuguese and they 

 use Portuguese money of reis and mil- 

 reis. A million reis amounts to about 

 $260 in our money. Trolley fares or 

 a post card costs 400 reis and 1000 reis 

 is an ordinary tip for a waiter. All 

 through South America they have a 

 pleasant way of naming their streets 

 and parks after some historical event. 

 It is just as if Broadway were called 

 Fourth of July Street. 



All of the South American cities are 

 fine places tn live in. They are made 

 beautiful. A city like Buenos Ayres 

 or Rio. for instance, has more acreage 

 in parks and gardens than five -cities 

 of the same size in the United States 

 and they are fine parks too, not open 



• squares of grass dead half the year. 

 They plant good trees and fine palms, 

 not of the common varieties, but varie- 

 ties like Cycas circinalis, Pnoenico- 

 phorum sechelarium, Licuala grandis 

 and Phoenix rupicola in magnificent 

 specimens and they keep them in fine 

 shape too, so that a drive or walk 

 through these parks is a refreshing 

 diversion after a day's work. 



Wc always think of Brazil as hav- 

 ing a very hot climate. True the av- 

 erage is high, but it never really gets 

 hot. The maximum temperature of 

 Para, only 11 miles south of the equa- 

 tor, is only 78 degrees. We get it 

 hotter than that right in New York 

 City sometimes and they get it in 

 Buenos Ayres, too. On the entire trip 

 we were never over-bothered wiin 

 mosquitoes and there are so few flies 

 that even in the hottest cities meat is 

 hung outside without protection. The 

 cities down there are nearly all pro- 

 gressive and up to date. Even in the 

 smaller cities they have fine trolley 

 cars and electric light systems and the 

 streets are well lighted. In Rio they 

 have mosaic sidewalks and in Buenos 

 Ayres they have five times more police- 

 men per 1000 population than we ha\e. 

 The growth and prospt-iitv of the 

 South American republics has been 

 amazing within the pas: two or three 

 decades. Englishmen and Germars 

 of intelligence and business or me- 

 chanical ability control the commer- 

 cial, shipping and engineering enter- 

 prises of South America. North Amer- 

 ica is represented only in a few is )- 

 lated places. Every railroad in the Ar- 

 gentine with one exception was fi- 

 nanced and built by Englishmen and 

 are now officered by them. The pub- 

 lic water works of Buenos Ayres were 

 built and are run by Englishmen. In 

 the year 1909 Englishmen took 250 

 million of dollars in dividends out of 

 the Argentine alone. The docks at 

 Santos and at Rio, also the wonderful 

 trans-Andean R. R. which runs across 

 the continent from Buenos. Ayres I'l 

 Valparaiso, more than 800 miles over 

 and through the Andes, are owned in 

 England. The engines and rollir.g 

 stock on the Chilean railroads and 

 most of their trolley systems were in- 

 stalled by the Gerniiins. Even their 

 soldiers all wear German uniforms. 

 There are over 40,000 English resi- 

 dents in the Argentine and only 400 

 Americans. The banks, docks and rail- 

 roads are controlled by the English or 

 Germans and we as a nation are hard- 

 ly known there, and why should we 

 be? They see large 10 and 12,000-ton 

 British. German and Italian steamers 

 entering their ports but never an 

 American one. Why. the American 

 consul at Santos told me that last year 

 393 large steamers left that port laden 

 with Brazilian products but a steamer 

 flying the American flag has not been 

 in there in ten years. No wonder that 

 the ITnited States has had little share 

 in the thriving prosperity of the 

 wealthy regions south of the Equator. 

 So long as the banking laws of the 

 United States forbid any branch 

 of American banks in South Amer- 

 ica, and so long as we have no 

 ships of our own ana prevent foreign 

 ships from trading from one American 

 port to another en route to South 

 America, the Monroe doctrine will ap- 

 pear a farce to South American repub- 

 lics and their trade will go to Euro- 

 peans who know how to handle it. 



