144 BRAZILIAN COTTON 



A piece of land 1,540mm. frontage to the river and 5km. in depth 

 was recently sold at 3 contos. The frontage to the river is the deciding 

 factor in land purchases in these parts, as the crops depend to a great 

 extent on the inundation which yearly deposits silt. 



Some 40,000 bales pass annually through Mossoro, concentrating 

 there from the Serido, Parahyba and Ceara. The distance from Mossoro 

 to Limoeira (in Ceara) is only 90km. of a good road. 



An excellent sample of cotton, uniform, 50mm. in length, coming 

 from the Jaguaribe valley in Ceara was shown to me. Dr. W. L. 

 Balls in his report signals these samples out as being high-class. {See 

 Chapter xii.) Rus.sos in that valley is an important cotton district. 



There are in Mos.sor6 several important merchants, who deal in 

 all kinds of produce^ but especially cotton, carnauba wax and goat 

 skins, viz. : — 



M. F. de Monte & Co. ship bales of 120 kilos to Europe, their 

 agents in Europe being Jacob Walter & Co., London, and J. Bromley 

 Moore & Co., Liverpool. 



TertuHano Fernandes & Co., Mossoro, have bought recently a 

 liigh density press, from Ceara, which will turn out bales of 150 kilos. 



Other Mossoro cotton merchants are : 

 Alfredo Fernandes. 

 Camillo Figueiredo. 

 F. Borges de Andrade. 

 Joao Fereira de Almeida. 

 These firms issued broadcast a circular explaining the necessity of 

 clean picking, etc. We saw this circular placarded up in many shops 

 of the interior. 



In Aracaty, the port of shipment for the produce of the Jaguariba 

 valley, there are : 



J. Klein, Figueredo & Co. 

 Costa Lima & Mirtyl. 



The port for Mossoro is Arreia Branca ; for an ox-cart carrying 

 18 bales each 70 kilos to Sao Antonio and from there in lighters to the 

 •ocean steamer costs at present about 800 reis per bale, the same price 

 as is charged by the railway company. 



Our next stops were at Sao Sebastiao, Pedras das Abelhas 

 ^nd Brejo do Apody. Very little cotton was to be seen ; the few 

 fields represented a mixture in which Verdao was always the best, 

 measuring up to 32mm. This is really the Carnauba Palm district. 



At Carahubas the Verdao cotton is known under another new 

 name " Pelucho." At a press in this place they moistened the sides 

 to improve baling. Buyers complain that the cotton from here con- 

 tains a good deal of sand. 



Fraudulent Packing. — Serido merchants come here to buy 

 inferior Matta cotton, take it to Serido and have it rebaled in sacks of 

 64 kilos. (At Carahubas the bales are mostly 100 kilos as they use 

 oxen carts for transportation. ) This Matta cotton is afterwards brought 

 into the market as Serido cotton. (Just what they did in Egypt, 

 when they mixed Upper and Lower Egyi:)tian cotton.) 



