110 EXPLOITATION OF THE FORESTS 



(Ilex paraguayensis). It is well known that an infusion 

 of mate (a kind of tea) is an important element in the 

 food of the western States of South America. Gathering 

 the leaves of the mate has been a profitable occupation 

 for centuries : a unique instance, perhaps, in the forest 

 industries of South America. It has never been inter- 

 rupted, though it has often changed its locality. 



The plantations made by the Jesuits were abandoned 

 when the missionaries were dispersed. After the close 

 of the eighteenth century Paraguay became the chief 

 area of production. Villa Rica seems to have been the 

 most prolific centre of the yerba. After that date, 

 however, the Jujuy basin, further north, was exploited, 

 and the yerbateros, who came from Curuguati, advanced 

 eastward as far as the Falls of the Guayra on the 

 Parana. In the nineteenth century the trade in 

 Paraguay mate seems to have suffered less than the 

 tobacco trade from the policy of isolation adopted by 

 the Dictators of Paraguay. The descriptions given 

 by Mariano Molas, Demersay, and others, show that 

 the business continued fairly actively. It even extended 

 northward, and reached as far as the Rio Apa. Villa 

 Concepcion became a rival yerba market to Villa Rica. 

 The monopoly exercised by the Paraguay Government, 

 however, and the restrictions put upon the navigation 

 of the river, led to the development of the yerba industry 

 in the eastern Misiones on the left bank of the Uruguay. 

 Itaquy served as port of embarkation. In the last 

 third of the nineteenth century the yards moved from 

 the left to the right bank of the Uruguay. Since 1870 

 the Parana has supplanted the Uruguay, and the yerba 

 trade has concentrated at Candelaria. This meant the 

 resurrection of Misiones. In 1880 San Javier, on the 

 Uruguay, worked up 800 tons of yerba, and Candelaria 

 more than 1,000 tons. The yerbales round San Javier 

 began to run out, and the yerbateros had to go further 

 and further up the Uruguay, toward the yerbales of 

 the tableland of Fracan and San Pedro. Candelaria 



