M IN AS—SAO FRANCISCO RIVER 



101 



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Primitive Hand Screw Press for Cotton Bales, in general use up-country 



Field workers receive 2 $570 per day. The share system is in 

 vogue in these parts. For picking cotton the payment is 1 $200 per 

 15 kilos ; a woman or a child can pick on an average only 15 kilos 

 per day. 



We visited also a plantation on the other side of the river ; in 

 one and the same field there was rice, beans, grass, Indian corn and 

 cotton. The owner could not tell us what he made on cotton. All 

 the different varieties of cotton were to be seen. Creoula takes nine 

 months to mature, but as they have no rain at that time of the year, 

 this long period of maturing does not interfere. There was a great 

 deal of " Big Boll " in the field, and some of it was good. 



About every ten years the land is flooded ; it is a slow inundation, 

 depositing alluvial soil. Occasionally heavy floods come ; the last 

 one was in 1919 of which all the towns and villages still bear traces 

 of devastation, many of the houses having fallen in and have not 

 been re-built. The water must have risen some 25m. on that 

 occasion and for months the people had to take refuge on the 

 neighbouring hills. 



Januario : 1,055km. from Joazeiro, 314km. from Pirapora. 



All the different kinds of cotton, except the " Inteiro " (or " Rim 

 de boi ") are called here " herbaceo " ; the people grow the usual 

 sorts, all mixed up. 



One gin had worked three years without sharpening saws. It 

 was driven by oxen, the gearing being on the model of the old-fashioned 

 Persian wheel. In this place we saw some women spinning by hand, 



