386 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
hay in Pernambuco, occupies practically all the low land. It is cut 
by hand. 
The wet meadows and stream borders offered the best botanizing. 
Here were great paspalums and panicums higher than my head, 
tangled with aroids, ferns, and brush. I was surprised to find a 
bog that quaked even more than do Maine bogs. This was about 
half a mile long, and billowed under my feet in a way that made 
me gasp. 
I wanted to see something of the sertao, the interior arid region. 
I had letters to missionaries in Recife, and from them I secured 
much helpful information. Here and elsewhere I found the mis- 
sionaries to be the best sources of information. They travel every- 
where, and like the botanists do it on a limited amount of money, and 
can direct one anywhere and give information about baggage and 
the numerous details that are so troublesome to a stranger unpre- 
pared for them. 
Bello Jardim, 186 kilometers to the west in the Serra da Genipapo, 
at an altitude of 600 to 650 meters, was chosen as representative of 
the sertao. At about 50 kilometers west the arid region begins, and 
the land becomes higher and drier as we go.. Giant agaves, at the 
end of blooming, were falling or ready to fall. Agave seems to be 
cultivated to some extent for rope making. This plant after flower- 
ing assures a second crop of offspring by producing leafy shoots all 
along the horizontal old flowering branches, these ready to take root 
as soon as the parent stem falls to the ground. 
The hills are covered with scrub or low trees, the “ caatinga,” con- 
sisting of Mimosa, Acacia, thorny shrubs, and semiarborescent cactus, 
except where it has been cleared for planting. Ground is cleared 
by burning, and cotton, sugar cane, castor plants, mandiocca, or 
tobacco are planted, sometimes here and there among the shrubs or 
tussocks of sedge that refused to burn down. ‘There seemed to be 
little or no cultivation. Mandiocca, or cassava, from which the staple 
food farinha is made, was the only clean crop seen, except small 
patches of tobacco. There are no plows or other agricultural imple- 
ments, planting and cutting being done with heavy hoes and large 
knives. When a field becomes overgrown with weeds or brush it is 
abandoned and a new place is burned. Land, I was told, is very 
cheap. The result is that cultivated spots are scattered, hit or miss, 
through the scrub, which is overgrazed by cattle, horses, donkeys, 
sheep, and goats, till only inedible shrubs and herbs, Jatropha, Cap- 
paris, and the like flourish. 
The poor skinny animals eat everything bare except where a bit 
of soii is protected by thorny or bitter shrubs. I searched such 
spots for remnants of the original ground-cover, but most of the poor 
little refugees were introduced weeds. Bermuda grass (Capriola 
