It is well known that the forest country of Brazil has an enormous area. The entire rubber region is estimated by a Brazilian authority as covering 1,000,000 square miles, half of which is in Brazil. Other forest regions of a different character are on the highlands and at the south, all together covering 1¹⁄₂ million square miles. The forests contain the varieties that might naturally be expected with others peculiar to the country, medicinal plants, trees with gums and resins, woods hard and soft, but mainly hard; some ornamental, others useful as timber; plants supplying tannin, quebracho and others; the beautiful Araucanian (Paraná) pine, the candelabra tree, of which there are 800,000,000 in Paraná. The wood is said to be 20 per cent stronger than the pine of Sweden; the trees are nearly 200 feet high, with a diameter at the base of ten feet. Other figures are 100 feet tall and three feet in diameter.
The timber industry is of slight development, but Paraná and Santa Catharina afford much good building material. The Brazil Company has in the two States over 500,000 acres with 5,000,000,000 feet of good standing timber and three mills. One of these, at Tres Barros, located on a railway, has a capacity of 40,000,000 feet a year, with planing mill, box factory, etc. There is a great market in Brazil and Argentina. Among unusually valuable trees is the peroba, with a trunk weighing 30 tons, worth $7 a ton on the spot. The imbuya tree which resembles mahogany is heavier than water. An infinite variety is found with infinite uses.
Rubber still has some importance, in spite of the great diminution of export owing to the development of the Ceylon plantations. Once the price was $3 a pound; in June, 1921, 15¹⁄₂ cents. Unfortunately the industry in past years was very badly conducted, with short-sighted policy, wasteful methods in tapping trees, foolish importation at excessive cost of all kinds of supplies including food, far too high prices to the laborers; partly in consequence of extortion and cruelty, a scarcity of labor; in addition, high export duties. The idea prevailed that people could get rubber nowhere else and must pay whatever price was asked. It was a severe shock when Ceylon rubber came more and more into the market, and was found to be a formidable rival. Although not generally considered equal to Pará fina, the Ceylon answers for most purposes.
The Government is now lending aid to the industry, encouraging plantations, and better methods otherwise. The export tax at Pará has been slightly lowered but is now 24¹⁄₂ per cent. A Government investigation, however, in 1912-14 at a cost of $47,000,000 did little besides paying fat salaries to favored individuals. The Ceylon export has recently been 300,000 tons to Brazil’s 37,000. So far synthetic rubber with the special therapeutic base has cost four times the hevea. The Pará fina is of course the hevea brasiliensis, which constitutes the larger part exported from the Amazon, 80 per cent of a good workman’s product. Sernamby is a by-product of scraps or careless work, though even the better is liable to be contaminated more or less with leaves, nails, etc. Caucho from the castilloa elastica is not so good, and in procuring it the tree is usually destroyed, as previously stated. Near the mouth of the Amazon where some collectors are quite independent, owning their own homes on the edge of the forest, are white rubber trees producing fraca or weak rubber; not so good as the hevea which has the most resilience, and is tough and elastic. For many purposes these qualities are essential, hence the higher price. Red rubber coagulates badly.
Men from the State of Ceará, especially in times of drought, have been glad to go to the Amazon as rubber collectors; and half wild Indians of Peru and Bolivia have been employed. The rubber is collected in the dry season, June to November. Dr. Oswaldo Cruz, a famous Brazilian physician, said of some of the Amazon regions that there were no natives, as all the children die; others declare that the normal condition of older persons is to be afflicted with malaria, beriberi, dysentery, pneumonia. Still others maintain that much of the higher land is fairly healthful for persons of careful habits who have good food. Conditions are improving. American and other companies are organizing on a more scientific basis than formerly, and with humane plans which in the long run will prove profitable. Lands have been secured in desirable locations where men can live all the year, raise their own vegetables, and not be dependent for their entire living, aside from fish, on canned stuff at enormous prices. To put Amazon rubber on a better basis it is necessary that the output be cleaner, the expenses of the collector smaller, and his living better through local cultivation of fruit and vegetables, which here grow luxuriantly, and with better habitations on suitable sites, so attracting a better labor supply. A further reduction by the Brazilian States of the rubber export tax, now about 24 per cent in Pará, seems also desirable.
Besides the hevea and caucho, two other varieties of rubber are exported, the maniçoba and the mangabeira, which have a place, like the balatá of the Guianas and Venezuela and the Guayule shrub from Mexico. The first is from the manihot tree which grows up to 4000 feet altitude, on a rocky soil where there is not too much rain; it is good for many purposes. The mangabeira, mostly from Pernambuco, grows on a sandy soil at 3000-5000 feet, but is a wet rubber not highly valued.
The Ceylon rubber trees, the seeds of which were taken from the Amazon and germinated in Kew Gardens, first blossomed in 1881. The seeds were used to plant more trees. In 1900 four tons of rubber came from the East, in 1910, 800 tons; the output in 1916 was about 150,000 tons. One million, three hundred thousand acres are now producing in Ceylon, India, Borneo, and elsewhere, a monument to British enterprise.
Herva Matte. A very important export, rather forestal than agricultural is called in Portuguese herva matte, the yerba mate of Spanish. Paraná is its special home where it grows wild in the forests, straying over into the neighboring States of Matto Grosso, São Paulo, Santa Catharina, and Rio Grande do Sul, and being native as we have seen to Paraguay, and to Misiones in Argentina. The trees or shrubs often grow in sections with the tall Paraná pines, the tree with the candelabra top, which is not only an ornament to the landscape but supplies good lumber, and pine kernels as large as chestnuts. These when boiled make a nutritious food, much relished by the Italians. The chief export of matte is through the city of Paranaguá, after preparation in the mills of the region. In 1915, 75,800 tons were exported, largely to Argentina, some also to Europe; 40,000 tons is an average amount. It is much used by the residents of Paraná, but in most of Brazil coffee has the preference.
Fibres. Besides cotton Brazil produces fibres of excellence from a variety of plants. A wonderful article but little known to the general public is the remarkable paina, called in Europe kapok, 34 times as light as water, 14 times, as cork. Chiefly produced in the Orient, it is obviously excellent for life preservers, also for mattresses, pillows, and for whatever needs to be light, warm, elastic, and impermeable. The best fibre, best packed, comes from Java, inferior grades from India and Africa. Introduced into Venezuela, it was so packed with stones and refuse that it was rejected when sent to Europe, although the article was of fine quality. Careless exporters of all articles should take warning. Other good fibres of Brazil are aramin, from which coffee bags are made; pita, from which the Amazon Indians make hammocks woven with much art, and sometimes with feathers interspersed along the edge. Palms and aloes supply other fibres, some equal, they say, to the famous henequen (sisal) of Yucatan. Banana fibre is used by north lace makers for a curious stiff shiny lace, some quite beautiful, fine and intricate, and some with a darned-in pattern of heavier silk thread, on a filmy background.
Carnaüba Wax, which forms an under coating of the leaves of the carnaüba palm, is not unlike beeswax. Nearly 600 tons were exported in 1915 valued at $2,400,000. The trees grow in the north States, especially in Rio Grande do Norte, where there are 15,000,000 trees, and in Ceará. Large amounts of the product are used locally. The wax is of excellent quality, melting at a low temperature and burning with a bright light. Mixed with a little beeswax and 10 per cent fat, it is easily worked and makes candles of high quality. It is much used for shoe blacking.