ARGENTINE AND PARAGUAY FORESTS 827 



type, which is all redwood, very hard and dry, cut from dead and 

 down trees, etc. This latter type is more valuable than the "green." 

 Of course, many other species of trees are used locally for fuel. 



BY-PRODUCTS 



The only wood yielding a dye that is at present exploited is algarroba. 

 There is one small factory at Santa Fe which makes a dye called 

 "algarrobin," a dark brown gummy substance exported to Europe in 

 wooden boxes, and said to be used for dyeing silks black. There are 

 very probably other species that could be used for dye making. 



Paper making is in its infancy. A small factory at Barranqueras, 

 Territory of Chaco, has recently been built to make paper from the 

 fibers of a very abundant dwarf cactus called ''caraguatay,'"' and experi- 

 ments have been made with the fibers of a very abundant shrub, a 

 species of hibiscus. 



Many species of Argentine trees yield medicinal substances, but 

 none are exploited systematically. There is a tree in Paraguay called 

 "paratodo,'' whose bark is used in place of quinine, and is said to be 

 equally efilicaceous. 



TANNIN 



By all odds the most important forest industry of Argentine and 

 Paraguay is the making of tannin from red quebracho. Formerly logs 

 were exported by the thousands of tons to factories in Europe and 

 United States, but this exportation has dwindled as more factories 

 have been located in the country. The first extract works was built 

 at Puerto Casado. northern Paraguay, in 1880, and now there are 

 twenty-six in Paraguay, one in Formosa, seven in the Territory of 

 Chaco. and six in Santa Fe. Their combined ])roductive capacity is 

 around -cJOO.OOO tons of solid extract (65 per cent pure tannin) per 

 year, which requires four times that amount of logs. 



Only the heartwood is used, and the minimum size material used is 

 about four inches diameter by six feet long. Most of the plants can 

 accommodate in their chipper sheds logs up to twenty feet long and 

 two feet or more in diameter. The trees are felled by axes, all the 

 bark and the f)ne-to-three-inch layer of whitish sapwood hewn otT. and 

 the logs hauled to the nearest railway or river landing in very heavy 

 two or four wlu-clcd wagons, with a capacity or two to three Ions, 

 drawn by two or more yoke of oxen. 



