By the end of the century Brazilian tobacco production had grown to some forty thousand tons, largely the result of ready markets in Germany, which practically absorbed the whole of this export until the outbreak of the European War, and the adoption of North American seeds and methods of cultivation. The output suffers fluctuations due to climatic conditions, as will be seen from inspection of the following figures; it will be noticed that prices have on the whole a tendency to rise:

Year Tons Total Value in Gold Milreis Price per Kilo in Paper Milreis
1905 20,390 7,335 contos 636 reis
1910 34,149 14,453 „ 714 „
1915 27,096 10,328 „ 835 „
1920 30,561 1200 „

In calculating prices it is well to bear in mind that the gold milreis is always worth twenty-seven English pence, while, although fixed between 1906 and 1914 at sixteen pence, the value of the paper milreis fluctuates. During 1915 it was worth an average of a fraction over twelve pence, so that the price of tobacco—eight hundred and thirty-five reis a kilo—may be considered as about eighteen cents a kilo, or a little over seven American cents per pound. While, as we have seen, thirty thousand tons of tobacco is exported each year from Brazil, enough remains in the country to supply ninety-six per cent of the internal consumption; cigars, tobacco and cigarettes are consumed in the country to the value of 40,622 contos, importations being worth only 1,500 contos of this amount.

Every state in Brazil has its large or small tobacco factories, but the great manufacturing region is that of São Felix, just across the bay from São Salvador (Bahia) city. Accessible to the factories established here are the finest tobacco regions: the product is excellent in flavour and well prepared for a discriminating market. Organizers of the manufacturing industry, as well as shippers to Europe, are largely German; German also is the big cigar factory of the South, that of Poock in Rio Grande do Sul, whose product goes all over Brazil.

Since the beginning of the European War the absence of German and Austrian shipping movement has paralyzed tobacco sales, and as this item forms about thirty per cent of Bahia’s exports it was necessary to seek unimpeded sales channels. Negotiations were opened with the Regie Française, the great French tobacco-buying organization, and the packing, quality, fermentation and other conditions studied with reference to sales.

CEREALS

Wheat growing is only possible on a commercial scale in the south of Brazil where temperature and climate are not unlike those of the European lands of origin of this cereal. At present Rio Grande is the only great wheat producing state, although Paraná has a budding industry; the great Italian firm of Matarazzo has recently acquired large areas of land in that state with the object of growing wheat and establishing a flour mill.

Rio Grande, which owes the major part of its opening-up to the German settlers who emigrated there about the middle of the nineteenth century, already grows half enough wheat to satisfy the internal needs of the State, for although she still imports 361,000 barrels of flour, and 236,000 bushels of wheat (equal to another 47,000 barrels) yet she also grows enough wheat to yield 407,000 barrels of native flour. She has, it is calculated, over 83,000 hectares of land under wheat, employs 29,000 field hands, and has over a thousand grain mills. Many of these are equipped with out-of-date machinery, and are small, but there are others fitted with good modern systems producing fine flour.

Two of the best wheat producing municipalities are Alfredo Chaves and Caxias, each of which have over four thousand hectares under wheat and produce an average of six thousand tons of this grain; the first municipality has fifty-one and the second sixty-seven mills. To show the “riograndense” growth in wheat production:

190915,250tons
191031,267„
191252,332„
191555,000„