448 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITIPnON, 1955 



However, in the Amazon Valley there are more serious difficulties 

 than even the poor soil. Some of these are described very vividly 

 by Vicki Baum in her novel "The Weeping Wood." " It is impossible 

 here to discuss the social and economic relationships and the motives 

 back of the conquistadores from Europe who explored the New 

 World about 400 years ago, setting the pattern for development of 

 the governmental, economic, and social relationships, but as Vicki 

 Baum describes them, certainly the feudal pattern imposed by the 

 Portuguese has persisted with amazingly little change. I have else- 

 where referred to this as the "Iberian curse" which has affected so 

 many of the tropical regions. A typical town of the lower reaches 

 of the Amazon River has been meticulously described by Dr. Charles 

 Wagley.^" 



Central Brazil is a vast region of old plateaus and eroded uplands 

 but with only a very moderate relative relief. One might say that 

 there has been really too little erosion in this country where the 

 laterite capping of the uplands has further retarded geological 

 erosion." 



Jose Setzer is one of those Brazilian students of tropical soils 

 who believe that coffee soils, particularly, suffer an irreversible deg- 

 radation as they are used. The exposure to sun and rain, plus the 

 clean cultivation from the excessive tillage, help to destroy the organic 

 matter and so the structure. The lack of shade trees for the coffee 

 in most of Brazil is another factor. 



It is certain that the abuse of the coffee gardens during the eco- 

 nomic crisis of the '30's was serious. The gardens were used for 

 cattle pasture. The grass that grew abundantly on the red clay 

 loam did protect the soil from sun and rain, but the trampling of 

 the cattle ruined the soil structure. At the same time, the cattle 

 did great damage to the coffee bushes. 



Much of the original organic matter had already been oxidized 

 out of the soil, but pasture grasses should restore at least some of 

 it. But whether or not the deterioration was permanent and irre- 

 versible, 20 years later new coffee gardens were being developed on 

 freshly cleared forest land farther west and north. The in-eversible 

 nature of soil deterioration had been accepted, though not yet con- 

 clusively proven. 



THE PHILIPPINES 



The Philippine Islands are a region of diversified rocks, relief, 

 soils, and climate. There are humid lowland rain forests, and in 



" 508 pp., 1945, published by Michael Joseph, Ltd., London. 



" Amazon Town, 298 pp., 1953, New York. 



"Robert L. Pendleton, Potentialities of the Tropics. A lecture before the 

 Graduate School, United States Department of Agriculture, Apr. 18, 1949; 

 in Chronica Botanica (in press). 



