FORESTRY AND AGRICULTURE 117 



Brazilians from the left bank of the Uruguay. At the 

 present time there is a constant stream of German- 

 Brazilians through the province of Misiones, to embark 

 at Posadas, sail up the Parana, and settle, further north, 

 in Matto Grosso. No doubt it would be possible to 

 induce part of them to settle on Argentinian territory 

 by offering them suitable land. 



These peasant clearers of the land rarely find means 

 to sell their timber. The tropical forest has an immense 

 variety of species, but only a few of these are of value. 

 The obrajero does not cut down the whole forest ; he 

 chooses his victims. In the waste land of the colonist 

 it is by no means possible to utilize everything. Even 

 in the area where the forestry industry flourishes, 

 trunks with no faults, felled in order to make room for 

 farming, are pitilessly burned and destroyed. 



Yet the indirect advantages of the forestry to agricul- 

 ture are numerous. Just as in the whole of southern 

 Brazil, it affords a good market for agricultural produce. 

 The crops from the colonies are stored in the shops at 

 Posadas, and from there they go to the obrajes and yer- 

 bales. In addition, the industry finds work for more men. 

 On the Rio Grande do Sul, and later on the Parana, the 

 wages paid for collecting mate have long been the surest 

 resource of the colonies, and it is this that enabled them 

 to subsist during the difficulties of their early period. 

 In Misiones the attraction of the yerbales is not so 

 strongly felt by the inhabitants. There are compara- 

 tively few colonists who are willing to leave their plots 

 and hire themselves for distant work. The yerbales 

 find their recruits, not amongst the immigrants from 

 Europe, but amongst the ancient pobladores ; that is 

 to say, men who hold land without a title, whose position 

 was recognized when the colony was formed — a floating 

 population, not deeply rooted in the soil. 



Agricultural colonization in turn will react upon the 

 forestry industry in developing the cultivation of mate. 

 Large plantations of ilex have already been established 



