RESOURCES OF BRAZIL— AGRICULTURE. 269 



The Brazilian plant, which is said to be the richest in Caffeine, scarcely begins 

 to yield before the fourth year, but gives abundant returns from the sixth to the 

 sixteenth or twentieth, after which there is a gradual falling off to the thirty -fifth 

 or fortieth year, when the plantation must be renewed. Usually it needs no 

 manure beyond its own foliage, and the weeds raked in between the rows. The 

 intervening ridges may even be planted with maize, sweet potatoes and beans. 

 But frosts are much dreaded, especially on the low-lying ground, for once nipped 

 the shrub takes two or three years to recover. It has also its parasitic diseases, 

 which, however, have hitherto been less destructive than in Java. On all the 

 large plantations the berry is cleansed, dried, sorted, and sacked for the market 

 in. vast establishments, employing hundreds of families, which usually live in 

 wretched villages, recalling the worst days of the ancien régime. 



Since the abolition of slavery the total yield has greatly increased, but this 

 increase has been almost exclusively confined to the large estates. In the " red 

 lands '' of S. Paulo some of these estates comprise over 25,000 and even 50,000 acres, 

 and certain great railway stations owe their existence entirely to the require- 

 ments of a single plantation. One of the domains belonging to a financial 

 company with a capital (18;i)3) of £400,000, employs 4,200 hands, nearly all 

 Italians, grouped in 26 villages and hamlets ; in favourable years this fazenda 

 may yield as much as 6,000 tons of coffee. The astounding development of this 

 industry, especially in the State of S. Paulo, where a billion plants are reckoned, 

 certainly presents a marvellous picture of agricultural progress. 



In Brazil, under the almost temperate climate of Rio de Janeiro and of 

 S. Paulo, the coffee shrub needs no protection from the burning rays of the sun, 

 as in Venezuela and other tropical lands, where the 3^oung plant is sheltered by 

 the overhanging branches of the cacao, erythrina, and other " foster mothers," as 

 they are called. Even the wild plant flourishes better beneath the shade of tall 

 forest trees than in the clearings m Kaffaland and other hot countries, where it 

 is indigenous. 



There was a time when Brazil also took the lead in the production of sugar. 

 But it has long been outstripped in this respect by the West Indies, and the 

 district of S. Vicente, where the cane was introduced from Madeira in the first 

 half of the sixteenth century, now produces next to nothing. At present the 

 industry is represented chiefly in Pernambuco, Bahia, and neighbouring provinces. 

 Much of the yield is used in the preparation of cachaça, a brandy which is found 

 in every Brazilian house, but which is not much appreciated by strangers. 



Cotton is grown chiefly in Ceares and the other northern States. After the 

 impulse given to it during the war of Secession, the industry languished, but has 

 since shown symptoms of revival under the almost prohibitory tariff imposed on 

 foreign cotton goods. The tobacco especially of Babia and Goyaz is highly 

 esteemed. Over five-sixths of the leaf is exported chiefly to Germany and 

 France, whence it returns in the form of cigars and cigarettes. The total annual 

 yield may be estimated at from 40,000 to 50,000 tons, valued at from £1,000,000 

 to £1,200,000. 



