EMPIKE OF BRAZIL, 121 



scarcity of labor presses upon the Brazilian planter, it is probable, 

 however, that measures will be taken to enlist the services of 

 that portion of the population now classed as aborigines, and 

 numbering over two millions, besides drawing thousands from the 

 low lands to the southern provinces, where a cooler climate makes 

 hard work less wearing upon the system. Or if no such solution 

 can be had, the power of machinery can be utiKzed, and history 

 will record of its adaptation in Brazil a story similar to that it 

 has written respecting the United States. 



This power of agricultural machinery to compensate for a de- 

 ficiency in the labor supply was most ably shown by Mr. Samuel 

 B. Kuggles, of Xew York, in a speech made to the Cobden Club, 

 at their annual dinner in London, on the 21st June, 1879. His 

 subject was " The Agricultural Progress of the Nation in Cheap- 

 ening the Food of America and Europe." In the course of his 

 remarks he said : 



" It may not be superfluous to add the prosaic fact, that our 

 scanty population of 5,922,471 individuals, aged ten years and up- 

 ward, engaged in agriculture in 1870, would have been wholly 

 unable, with any human labor within their reach, to plough, sow, 

 and plant the land, and to reap, mow, and prepare for market the 

 immense crop of cereals and grasses represented in a yearly pro- 

 duct of $2,447,189,141. That vast work was and could be accom- 

 plished only by the use of the efficient and various agricultural 

 labor-saving machines and implements, mainly the fruits of 

 American invention and enterprise, practically augmenting from 

 five to tenfold, or, in mathematical phrase, raising to that higher 

 power the unaided working capacity of the 5,992,471 individuals. 

 In truth, it is this great and providential superaddition of force 

 which now fully enables our country to discharge the sublime and 

 beneficent duty to plentifully and permanently feed with vegetable 

 and animal food large and constantly increasing portions of the 

 populations of the outer world." 



Brazil has already begun to use new machinery and adopt 

 improved processes of cultivation and preparation upon the 

 plantations. In the production of sugar the most improved ma- 

 chinery is being introduced, and we are informed, in a volume 

 issued by the government, that " the culture and preparation of 



