SAO PAULO 



81 





Cotton Field on the Fazenda " Salto Grande " of Rawlinson, 

 Miiller & Co., Carioba, Villa Americana 



for this work they get paid a daily wage. A man able to work the 

 disc-cultivator gets 5 milreis per day. 



The company has some £3,000 invested in ploughs and other 

 agricultural machinery. Practically all the cotton raised on the 

 estate is used in the mill of the company, where 18's is the average 

 count, though exceptionally up to 60 's has been spun from cotton 

 raised on the estate. The cotton is, of course, by far too good for 

 such low counts as 18's. 



Planting takes place middle of November, and as only early 

 maturing kinds of cotton are used picking begins about middle of 

 April. This part of the country gets sometimes frost in June. 



The manager told me that if the price of seed cotton is 7 $000 

 per 15 kilos it pays as well as any crop. 



This plantation shoivs what can be done throughout Sao Paulo, the 

 land does not seem as fertile as the Sorocabana or the north-western zone. 



The rent paid in adjoining parts is 200 milreis per " alqueire." 

 The present purchase price of land was stated to be one conto per 

 alqueire, but no doubt when buying a large estate considerable reduc- 

 tions can be obtained. 



Our next visit was to Sao Carlos, 800 metres high, and then to 

 Sampaio Vidal, named after the family of the " Diputado " who 

 accompanied us. The soil here begins to be of that fertile red earth, 

 known as " terra roxa," excellent for coffee cultivation ; it looks 

 almost like finely ground coffee ; it produces a dust which penetrates 

 through everything, even to the works of the watch. 



