28 THE RUBBER INDUSTRY 



fairly close proximity to the foreshore. This condition 

 applies also to the riparian lands of many of the tribu- 

 taries, and to large sections of the main river, the tidal 

 influence being felt as far inland as Santarem, a dis- 

 tance of some 530 miles from the seaboard. The 

 number of trees in these very low-lying districts is 

 abundant, but they have neither the development nor 

 the healthy appearance of those found in drier locali- 

 ties, and they are nearly all of the white variety of 

 Hevea Brasiliensis, yielding rubber classed as weak 

 (fraca) in the Manaos and Pard markets. In this 

 section of the Amazon Valley, the population generally, 

 and the rubber collectors especially, live for the most 

 part in a state of the utmost poverty. They dwell in tem- 

 porary wooden or reed huts built on piles to raise them 

 above the tidal level, and they exist on fish caught in 

 the river, together with the absolute necessities of life 

 purchased with the proceeds of the rubber they take to 

 the nearest store for sale. Year after year this desolate 

 and wretched existence is dragged out, with small profit 

 to the people individually and no substantial benefit 

 whatever to the community as a whole. 



On the higher lands of these districts of the Lower 

 Amazon some attempts have been made to establish 

 plantations of rubber-trees, but seldom with any satis- 

 factory results. In many cases the young plants have 

 been set out in clearings opened for growing crops of 

 mandioca, maize, and other foodstuffs, but it is rarely 

 that any effort is made to keep the young trees tree 

 from undergrowth and weeds, and where they survive 

 at all they are stunted and of such slow development as 

 to be of little value. Occasionally the forest is cleaned 



