848 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [September i, 1881. 
wooden one, like a round -bladed paddle, — washes it 
with the milk, and holds it over the smoke until the 
liquid coagulates. Then another coat is added, only 
now, as the wood is heated, the milk coagulates faster. 
It may take the gatherings of two or three days to 
cover the mold thickly enough. Then the rubber is 
still dull white, but in a short time it turns brown 
and finally almost black, as it is sent to the market. 
The mass is cut from the paddle and sold to traders 
in the village. Bottles are sometimes made by mold- 
ing the rubber over a clay ball, which is then broken 
tip and removed. Our old-fashioned rubber shoes used 
to be made in this way. Twenty million pounds of 
rubber, valued at $6,000,000, are annually exported 
from Para ; in the dry season many thousand people 
are engaged in gathering it. But the business is alto- 
gether a ruinous one for the province, as Brazilians 
themselves are fully aware. The serin gueiro, who gains 
two or three dollars from a single day's gathering, 
has enough, as life goes here, to keep him in idle- 
ness for a week ; and when his money is spent, he can 
draw again on his ever-ready bank. 
The present wasteful system is spoken of as follows : — 
The half-wild seringueiros will go on submitting to 
impositions and dying here in the swamps, until 
Brazilians learn that by purchasing this land from the 
government and planting it in rubber-trees, they can 
insure vastly larger profits, and do away with the 
evils of the present system. It is what must eventu- 
ally be done. The rubber gatherers, in their eager- 
ness to secure large harvests, have already killed an 
immense number of trees about the Para estuary ; 
they have been obliged to penetrate farther and farther 
into the forest, to the Tocantins, Madeira, Punis, Bio 
Negro, and eventually even these regions must be 
exhausted, unless they are protected in some way, 
The trees, properly planted and cared for, will yield 
well in fifteen years, and, of course, the cost of gather- 
ing would be vastly reduced in a compact plantation ; 
half the present labor of the rubber collector consists 
in his long tramps through the swampy forest. 
Further on the writer refers to the Cacao industry. 
He says : — 
Between the Bio Negro and the Xingu, the most 
important lowland crop is cacao. It is true, the trees 
will grow quite as well or better on the terra firma * 
but Brazilians prefer the varzeaa for their plantations 
because the ground is easily prepared and takes care 
of itself; besides, the orchard arrives at maturity 
much sooner. We hardly notice these cacao planta- 
tions from the river ; the dark green of the foliage 
is so like the forest, and generally there are other 
trees near the shore. But for miles the banks are 
lined with them, mostly the orchards of small pro- 
prietors, who own a few hundred pds of cacao, though 
some of the estates have twenty or thirty thousand 
trees. In our wanderings about the lowland we often 
pass through these cacoaes. They have a rich beauty 
of their own, — the dense foliage, the twilight shade 
beneath, and the dark stems, four or five together 
with the fruit growing, not amoDg the leaves, but 
directly from the trunk and main branches, attached 
only by a short stem. The ground is quite clear and 
free from underbrush, and in the summer when the 
fruit is gathered is for the most part dry. The harvest 
months are July and August when the gatherers 
go every day to pick the ripe fruit from each trc-e 
and bring it in baskets to the houso. There the oval, 
ribbed outer shell is cut open and the seeds are washed 
from the white pulp ; then they are spread over mats 
and placed on raised stagings to dry in the sun, care 
being taken to turn them at intervals. Most of the 
seed is exported in this form ; a little is roasted, 
pounded, and made into cakes with melted sugar for 
* On the Amazons this term is applied to all land 
that is not alluvial or swampy. Varzeas or vargens, 
are the flood-plains. 
the delicious chocolate of the country.' Unfortunately 
on the Amazons the sun is a very uncertain drying 
agent ; frequently there are heavy showers, and the 
sky is clouded for days together ; so it often happens 
that the imperfectly prepared seed gets musty and 
half rotten before it reaches the market. Much of the 
Para cacao therefore, does not rate very high with the 
manufacturers. All this might be avoided by the in- 
troduction of a simple drying-machine, such as is 
used at Bio for coffee. Stopping at the fazendas, we 
frequently get a refreshing drink, made from the white 
pulp which surrounds the cacao-seeds. Enterprising 
planters prepare from this pulp a delicious amber 
jelly, which if it were placed in the market would be 
much more popular than guava-jelly. Even the shells 
are valuable ; they are dried and burned, and from the 
ash is prepared a very strong brown soap— a necessity 
to every Amazonian washerwoman. 
We could call the attention of cacao planters in 
Ceylon to theee last sentences, from which it will be 
seen that the cacao pod is of value in more than, one way. 
Bamboos and Mangoes. — A correspondent writes to 
the Times of India : — " Bamboos will flower and mango 
trees bear plentifully only under favourable circum- 
stances, viz , a moist atmosphere for mangoes and hot 
sun for bamboos to put forth their inelegant blossoms. 
A mango famine fortells a grain famine, light rains, 
but healthy weather; flowering bamboos are a sign, 
of light monsoon, famine aud pestilence. Mangoes in. 
excess foretell heavy rains and plagues ; therefore if 
with this excess, bamboos flower, natives are in dread 
suspense of a coming ominous calamity. If mangoes 
ripen before rain falls, it is considered dangerous to 
partake of them. There is a saying among natives. 
' Eat a mango before it rains and dig your grave.* 
Bamboos blossom every fifteen years, but natives imagine 
they flower but to prophesy." 
Mr. Tom Hughes says in reference to the recent 
unfavourable reports of the colony of Bugby : — " There 
is not one of our English lads who came here with 
the intention to work who is not at work. We have 
probably two or three who have no love for work 
they can avoid, but I believe you will find such in 
any community. We have tried to have no young mea 
sent out here whose parents are notable or willing to 
offer a premium for their instruction in work during 
the first year, but we have some whose work under 
instruction is already worth their board. I think it 
very unjust to criticise our colony as one fully estab- 
lished might be criticised. We are here but eight months 
as yet, hardly out of our packing-boxes — you might 
say — everything is new to us ; but I feel assured we 
shall succeed very well, and that before long too." — 
Times of India 
The Useful Suntlower. — In South-western 
Bussia, between the Baltic and the Black Seas, the 
sunflower is universally cultivated in fields, gardens, 
and borders, and every part of the plant is turned 
to practical account. A hundred pounds of the seeds 
yield forty pounds of oil, and the pressed residue 
forms a wholesome food for cattle, as also do the 
leaves and the green stalks cut up small, all being 
eagerly eaten. The fresh flowers, when a little short 
of full bloom, furnish a dish for the table which 
bears favorable comparison with the artichoke. They 
contain a large quantity of hooey and so prove an 
attraction to bees. The seeds are valuable food for 
poultry ; ground into flour, pastry and cakes can be 
made from th*-m; and boiled in alum-water, they yield 
a blue coloring matter. The seed receptacles are 
made into blotting-paper; the woody portions are 
consumed as fuel, and from the resulting ash valuable 
potash is obtained. Large plantations of them in 
swampy places are a protection against intermittent 
fever. 
