10 
BULLETIX 1422, TT. S. DEPABTMEXT OF AGRICULTURE 
recommendations for improving conditions. As it happened, most 
of the acts passed by the Government were not enforced, and the 
suggestions of Akers were not carried out, so that conditions were not 
improved. The low price of rubber did operate to reduce living 
costs in the region from the extremely high level they had formerly 
attained; otherwise little change occurred. 
Akers suggested in his report that a decline in Brazilian exchange 
might be a means of relieving the situation, and that is exactly what 
has happened. The lower rate of exchange has undoubtedly been 
harmful for Brazil as a whole, but it has enabled the rubber industry 
to survive for a number of years. Most of the supplies for the rubber 
collectors are produced in Brazil, and the larger number of milreis 
received in exchange for each pound of rubber has enabled them to 
live. At present, however, with a very low price for rubber, the ex- 
change is steadily improving and bids fair to toll the death knell of 
Fig. 2. — A seringueiro of Matto Grosso at home. In his left hand he carries his machadinho; in 
his right hand he holds a balde. On his back is the wicker basket which holds a rubber bag full 
of latex 
this industry, which has meant more to the great Amazon basin than 
all others combined. 
METHODS OF COLLECTING RUBBER 
The methods used by the rubber collectors in the Amazonian forests 
and the mode of life of the " seringueiros/ ' as they are called in 
Portuguese, have been described many times, and good accounts may 
be found in the publications of Ule (42), Akers (2), Pearson (32), 
Lange (15, 16), Woodroffe (47), Woodroffe and Smith (48), Walle 
(44) , Lecointe (25), and others. Therefore, only a brief sketch will 
be given here. 
The seringueiro who plans to tap virgin trees selects an area which 
has not yet been worked,, near the bank of a stream navigable by his 
canoe. He builds himself a rough dwelling, roofed and sided with 
palm thatch (fig. 2), and then begins scouting for rubber trees. With 
