On the Alto Paraná, as previously stated, there is semi-weekly service from Corrientes to Encarnación and Posadas. Above, three times a week steamers, with many calls on both sides of the river, make a four days’ journey to the Iguassú and beyond to Puerto Mendez, from which point a short railway in Brazil passes around La Guayra Falls.
Railway facilities are increasing, construction though not so easy as on the Argentine plains being less difficult than in general in the other Republics. Nearly 475 miles of track are in operation, 200 of them privately owned. The main line of the Central Paraguay, Encarnación to Asunción, 230 miles, has first class equipment with through sleepers to Buenos Aires, 966 miles from Asunción. Several short lines of very narrow gauge, about 30 inches, transport quebracho and timber from the interior to river ports, 152 miles of these in the Chaco. A railway of 40 miles serves sugar mills back of Concepción. If the cross lines proposed to Brazil and Bolivia (of one of the former some miles are in operation) are constructed within the decade, a rapid development will ensue. Cart roads are few and very poor. In wet weather six or eight oxen are required for a cart. Two-wheeled vehicles are much employed.
CHAPTER XLI
PARAGUAY: RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES
The chief resources of Paraguay at present and for an indefinite future are pastoral pursuits, forestry, and agriculture.
Forestry
Quebracho. The exploitation of quebracho is an important source of wealth. On the estimated 27,000,000 acres of forest land in the country are valuable woods of many varieties, among which the quebracho is preëminent. The first factory in South America for the extraction of tannin from this wood was established in 1889 at Puerto Galileo in the Chaco. The Forestal Company, British owned, was a leader in the development of the industry in which one or more American companies have lately become interested. Large sums have been invested, $15,000,000 it is said by a single company. Most of the properties are located in the Chaco, which has great tracts of land distributed to individuals or companies, some of whom have never seen their holdings. One American company has 1,500,000 acres.
Unlike most other trees from which tannin is derived, the tannin is not in the bark, but it permeates the entire wood. Formerly the logs were exported, but this is now forbidden. The International Products Company has a mill at Puerto Pinasco on the west bank of the Paraguay above San Salvador, and 300 miles north of San Antonio. The wood is remarkably rich in tannin which runs 20 per cent. The wood must be cut and then ground to extract the substance, the refuse wood running the engines. One tree weighing a ton will produce 600 pounds of extract. By means of three rotary evaporators, the extract may be solidified so as to be packed in bags, 75-100 tons of the solid in 24 hours. The Company, owning enough wood to produce 450,000 tons, is equipped to supply 30,000 tons of the extract annually. The trees are hauled by oxen to a light railway which brings them to the port, the railway being extended as the felling of the trees goes farther inland. Twenty million pounds of extract were exported from Paraguay in 1919.
Other Wood. Several other trees have bark which is used for tannin, among them the curupay, said to have 28 per cent in the bark, which is used in Paraguay. This is one of the strongest woods in the world, like quebracho much wanted for railway ties. The urunday is a wood so durable that posts of it in damp ground have lasted 200 years. Other woods resemble the hickory, the English walnut, the soft pine, etc. The ivara-pitak is a fine all around timber, light, tough, and hard, an unusual combination. Lignum vitae (palo santo), almost as hard as quebracho, cedar, and bitter orange abound, the leaves of the latter used for essential oil, chiefly exported to France. The hard woods are useful for railways, for cabinet making, and fine furniture; also for firewood on account of the enormous price of coal. From the proximity of the forests to the coalless region of Argentina and its plains, mostly treeless or supporting light woods only, like eucalyptus and poplar, forestry is certain to have in Paraguay a speedy and extensive development, in spite of the fact that there is a great variety of trees growing in a small space, as 47 different kinds among 163 trees in a tract 100 yards square. However, in places in the Chaco the quebracho chiefly abounds.
Other woods found in the eastern forest are ibiraro, close grained and flexible, the best for wheels, which made of this wood last for years without tires, excellent also for boat and ship building; the caranday or black palm 30 feet high, used for telegraph poles and scaffolding; palo de rosa (rosewood), a mahogany used for cigar boxes; the tatum, good for clothes boxes, being obnoxious to insects; and many more, valuable but little known. Also there are fibre plants, ramie, jute, etc.
Yerba mate, although now to some extent cultivated, is chiefly a forestal product. Once known as Paraguay tea, it is a famous product of the country, and in some sections the most important.