TROPICAL SOILS — PENDLETON 447 



the forest, to make clearings in which to plant Hevea rubber. They 

 built the largest modern sawmill in South America to cut the forest 

 trees into timber for export to temperate regions. Undoubtedly one 

 of the most serious difficulties w\as to market the large number of 

 different kinds of tropical timbers. This has always been a problem 

 in the Philippines where there are over 400 different kinds of com- 

 mercial timber trees that can be used but there is seldom enough of 

 any one of these to make exploitation of most sorts economical; nor 

 do commercial firms care to experiment as to how to utilize new and 

 untried kinds of timber. 



It is not well understood how very diversified all forms of life are 

 in tropical countries — not only trees, but insects, birds, fishes, etc. 

 As an example of diversity there is Mount Makiling in the Philip- 

 pines on whose slopes we made our home for about 12 years. On this 

 one small extinct volcano less than 4,000 feet high, and perhaps 10 

 miles in diameter at the base, a botanical survey showed that there 

 were more different species of woody plants on this one small moun- 

 tain than in the entire United States. 



Returning to Ford's experiments in the central Amazon, it should 

 be mentioned that at the start this project was in the hands of engi- 

 neers, not agriculturists. The first timber mill and plantation, Ford- 

 landia, was well up the Tapajos River. The site was found unsuitable 

 for the growing of rubber. A second site, called Belterra, was found 

 nearer the Amazon River. In 1949 I visited this plantation, and was 

 much impressed with the growth of the trees and with the general 

 layout of the plantation on a plateau well above the river. It should 

 be mentioned that the Hevea hrasiliensis (Para rubber trees) do not 

 require a very fertile soil. It is native on the poor upland forest soils 

 of the Amazon Valley, for it does not thrive where the drainage is 

 very poor, as Hevea trees should have reasonably good drainage. Tlie 

 development of the Belterra plantation had been expensive, in part, 

 because of the South American leaf disease, so that double budding 

 is necessary in order to get the highest yielding types of trunk panels 

 to grow disease-resistant cro^vns. To retard the spread of the leaf 

 disease actually three different kinds of tops had been budded onto 

 clonal trunks. "When I visited this plantation in 1949 it was under 

 control of the Brazilian Government; the management was tapping 

 as many of the trees as possible with the available labor. In spite of 

 inducements to labor there were never enough workers to tap the trees 

 already large enough for tapping. The Brazilian Government bought 

 Ford's 11-million-dollar investment for a mere quarter of a million 

 dollars, but even on this basis, and without any capital charges to 

 meet and with a protected market in Brazil for all the rubber they 

 produced, we were told that the plantation was barely making ends 

 meet. 



