December i, 1906.] 



THE INDIA RUB3EK WORLD 



81 



THE ACRE AS A RUBBER PRODUCING REGION. 



AWAY up, on the southwest expanse of the upper Am- 

 azon valley, bounded by Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia, 

 and ramified bj- a labyrintliic river system which 

 has no equal, there lie, embracing many thousands 

 of square miles of imposing and somber forests, the richest 

 and most extensive rubber regions in the world. This is 

 particularly true of that large extent of territory lying south- 

 east of the rcgio de ios basques, bounded by the Amazon river 

 on the north, the Javary on the west, the Ucayali on the 

 southwest, and the Madre de Dios on the extreme south- 

 west, from its source to beyond its juncture with the Beni or 

 up to the Madeira river, and which is known as O Acre, now 

 forming, under three political divisions (prefectures), the 

 Brazilian Federal territory of the same name. 



Large as the production of rubber from the middle and 

 lower Amazon valleys has been up to the present daj', it will 

 not stand the least comparison with the 

 immense yield which the vast forests 

 along the principal rivers and numer- 

 ous aflluents and tributaries in the 

 Acrean regions are alone capable of ren- 

 der:!'3^ 



What makes the southern regions of 

 the upper Amazon valley, particularly 

 those in and about the Acre, so valuable 

 as a source of inexhaustible supply of 

 the gummy milk, is not so much the 

 unparalleled vast area of rubber produc- 

 ing forests itself as the astonishingly 

 large number of rubber trees — capable 

 of yielding an uncommonly large sup- 

 ply of the highest grade of rubber — con- 

 tained within almost any given area in 

 the territory. Next, but not least in 

 importance, is the fact that its circum- 

 ambient river system, owing to its pecu- 

 liar ramifications, renders easily access- 

 ible from almost all points any tract of 

 forest one maj' choose for operations, which is not the case 

 in the less productive rubber forests of the middle and lower 

 valleys. 



As the major part of the great rivers and their principal 

 affluents in the upper Amazon vallej- are navigable — many 

 of them for hundreds of miles — to smaller or larger steam 

 craft during the greater part of the year, the receiving of 

 supplies and the shipping of rubber do not constitute the 

 serious problem which would be encountered in the e.xploi- 

 tation of rubber forests available to-day elsewhere in the 

 Amazon valley, whether in Brazilian, Peruvian, or Bolivian 

 territorj', barring the immense and rich forests of northwest- 

 ern Matto Grosso, in the Guapore valley, few of which have 

 so far been explored. 



The Acrean and other southwestern regions offer, besides, 

 two other advantages of importance to the more economical 

 and thorough development of the business of extracting 

 rubber which greatly contribute to the fame claimed for that 

 territory in bearing such a relation to the world's future 

 production of rubber as does to-day Kimberley to that of 



CORONEL THAUMATURQO DE AZEVEDO. 



diamond mining ; these are salubriousness and short flood 

 seasons. As to the first, owing to the higher level of the 

 regions, the humidity and dampness are not excessive, as in 

 the middle and lower valleys, and the heat is likewise much 

 less intense. In fact, the humidit3' and heat prevailing in 

 the southwestern zones are not anj' worse than the hot, sul- 

 try weather experienced in New York during a "hot wave. " 

 As to the dreadful yellow fever we hear so much about, 

 and which people have come to associate with the Amazon 

 river, there is none lurking in those forests to claim the first 

 white man venturing there, as some "tourists " and "book 

 reader travelers " would make us believe. The little yellow 

 fever there is is confined to the cities in the lower valley. If 

 malarial and other fevers — as well as beriberi and such other 

 maladies as will attack a weak and debilitated system — do 

 claim some victims among the colonies oicaboclos or half breed 

 Indian trappers in a seringal (rubber es- 

 tate), it is principally due to the miser- 

 able conditions of sanitation, habitation, 

 and alimentation existing under the ad- 

 ministration of the average owner him- 

 self. These evils could easily be reme- 

 died through the application of modern 

 methods of exploitation. 



The Acrean and other southwestern 

 regions are, as a whole, salubrious, and 

 this is an essential requisite to the de- 

 velopment of the rubber industry upon 

 modern and extensive lines, such as 

 onlj' foreign capital and enterprise can 

 successfully accomplish. And, as to 

 the second of these additional advant- 

 ages, it is obvious that the duration of 

 the flood season must have an import- 

 ant bearing upon the total crop of a 

 seringal. During the winter or rainy 

 season, the rising rivers will flood the 

 forests, and all operations on the seriji- 

 gal must remain at a standstill until the heavy rains have 

 ceased and the waters subsided. 



In the lower and middle valle^-s the rainy season begins 

 in November and terminates in March, and in the upper val- 

 ley it commences in September and ends in December, 

 whereas in the southwestern regions the rains take place 

 from June to October. The copious rains attending the 

 winter there are sufficient in themselves to cause a cessation 

 of all the labors in a rubber estate; and as both the rainy 

 season and the duration of the floods are considerably 

 lighter and shorter in the southwestern expanse the upper 

 Amazon valley than in the middle and lower valleys, the 

 Acrean and all adjacent territorj- 13'ing south and southeast 

 of it offers a much longer working season, which means 

 more money to the rubber operator. 



This apparent stagnation in the rubber industry would 

 undoubtedly have continued to exist indefinitely and made 

 its consequences the more lamentably felt, had it not been 

 for the great impetus given it b}' the opening up and explor- 

 ing of the Acre territory and the consequent exploitation 



