Everything about this plantation is conducted in a systematic manner, and in that is the secret of Colonel Schmidt’s success. The thirty-two farms are all connected with his home by telephone, for which more than eighty miles of telephone wire have been strung. Everything, including plumbing supplies, is kept in systematic order and the owner himself knows where each article may be found. Machinery when not in use is carefully stored under shelter to protect it from rust. A half dozen blacksmiths, as many woodworkers, harnessworkers, shoemakers, etc., are kept on the plantation, and even a private tailor is employed at the house. A dozen or more general stores are operated for supplying the wants of the employees. With this and much more detail this great plantation is run on modern business methods, with as perfect a system of bookkeeping as the average business man employs. From these books can be told at a glance the exact cost of each plantation for each year, its production and the net profit to the owner. And, above all, the Colonel is a charming host, and finds time to make it interesting for those, like myself, who visit him where he is king.
A RUBBER PLANTATION OF MANIÇOBA RUBBER TREES.
The “Dumont” fazenda adjoins the one just described, and it is the second largest plantation in Brazil, and perhaps in the world. It was formerly owned by the family of Santos-Dumont, the aeronaut, but is now under the control of an English company. They own a private railroad with more than forty miles of track, which runs to Riberão Preto. The track is only twenty-six inches wide, and the cars are rather narrow with room for only one person on each side of the aisle. A special train, with the best car the road possesses, drawn by a Baldwin engine, was sent for us and we were taken over the coffee plantation, which possesses nearly five million trees. It was also very interesting to travel over the thousands of acres owned by them, in and through the rows of coffee trees which almost brushed up against the car in places, in this comfortable, if diminutive coach, and see the methods of culture and care of the coffee, which is slightly different than that pursued on the other. It was also interesting to find an up-to-date American in charge of the vast interests of this English company, and to know that one of our own nationality is making good in the coffee-raising industry as well as in other lines. This company markets all its own coffee through an auxiliary company in England in packages under its own labels. The “Dumont” fazenda is also conducting an experiment in rubber culture, and now has forty thousand trees growing, some of which are almost ready to tap. If rubber continues to advance, as it has in the past year, this part of their plantation may prove more profitable than the growing of coffee.
CHAPTER VII
AN AMERICAN COLONY UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS
Have you ever heard of the Villa Americana in Brazil?
Quite likely you have not, for I had never heard of it myself until my visit to that interesting country brought it to my notice. We frequently hear of German villages, Hungarian settlements and Italian colonies, but a settlement of North Americans on the other side of the equator is something new. And yet the colony is not new, for it was established more than a generation ago; children have grown up and married, who still call themselves North Americans, and who have never set foot on soil over which waves the stars and stripes. In travelling over Brazil I frequently met with American young men and women who informed me that they came from the Villa Americana. So often did that name reach my ears that I decided to visit this place, and see for myself what kind of a settlement it was, and how these voluntarily expatriated fellow countrymen lived in this land so different from our own. It is a journey of about two hours from Campinas on the Paulista Railway.
But first let me tell you the history of this colony. At the close of the civil war many Southern families, whose plantations had been devastated by the northern armies, felt that they could not live again under the old flag. Proud spirited and unconquered, these brave southern veterans who had marched with Stonewall Jackson, and the Lees, and Johnsons, decided that they would leave the land that had given them birth and seek fortunes anew in a new land, and amidst new surroundings. Brazil appealed to the leaders in this movement because the plantation system was similar to that under which they had been raised, and slavery was legal in that land, which was still an empire. A few men went as an advance guard and selected a site about one hundred miles northwest of the city of São Paulo. A favourable report was made to those still back in the States, and it was not long until several hundred families had left their Southern homes, and were making new homes underneath the Southern Cross. In all it is estimated that at least five hundred American families located in that section of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, between the years 1865 and 1870. They came from Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and perhaps one or two other of the seceding states.