PRODUCTS. Coffee, rubber, herva matte, sugar and mandioca receive special attention on account of the importance of these Brazilian products; but the southern plateau in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catharina and Parana produces all the cereals and fruits of temperate zones and many of those of the tropics as well. We find here wheat, Indian corn, rye, potatoes and such vegetables as are grown in the United States; while rice, cof fee, oranges, bananas and pineapples thrive in the lowlands along the coast. In many places grapes are grown and attention is given in the south to the production of native wines.
The great coffee-producers of the world are the Paulistas — the people of the state of Sao Paulo. The celebrated terra roxa (red earth) in which the coffee-trees flourish best is found in other parts of the republic, but the Paulistas were the first to demonstrate its extraordinary value for coffee-culture. The history of what Linnaeus named Coffea Arabica, in its long migrations from the wild forests of Abyssinia and Mozambique to the carefully cultivated fasendas of Sao Paulo, is a most interesting one. It is a far cry from its first restricted use as a drug in the .East to Its present status as one of the world's most popular beverages; from the time when its production in the West was prohibited and gave rise to as absurd conflicts as attended the introduction of tobacco into Europe. . . . It is scarcely 80 years since the production of coffee in the state of Sao Paulo received its first impetus. Before that time it was rarely found outside of a drug store. But after that the development of the industry was so rapid and so extraordinary that it stands forth as one of the marvels of economic history.° Of course the circumstance that in Sao Paulo the coffee-trees do not require shading (that is, are not, as in Porto Rico and parts of Mex ico, etc., grown and cultivated under the pro tecting shade of larger trees) contributes to this ((marvellous') success. "In 1851 the amount of coffee exported from Sao Paulo was some thing more than 100,000 sacks of 132 pounds each. Thenceforth the export of this staple increased with rapidity until, in 1896-97, the amount produced reached more than 15,003,000 sacks. This, with what was collected in other parts of the republic, gave Brazil 85 per cent of the world's total production. That year
the state of Sao Paulo produced fully three times as much coffee as all the other states of Brazil combined. But this enormous crop was more than the market could bear. The supply had gone beyond the demand. The price of coffee fell until it threatened coffee-growers and the state itself with financial disaster. But the Paulistas were equal to the emergency. In order to support the market and to protect the coffee industry, they had recourse to the much criticized measure known as coffee valorization. The operation seemed like a gambler's risk, but there was so much at stake that the gov ernment of Sao Paulo did not hesitate to act. This measure achieved the end in view. They also began to direct their surplus energy into other channels, cultivating nce, cotton, etc., and planting such rubber-producing trees as manicoba and mangabeira; establishing new industries and devoting more attention to man ufactures. The average annual coffee crop of Brazil is about 12,000,000 sacks of 132 pounds each. In 1915 the estimated produce was 9,497,553 sacks.
Cattle-raising in Sao Paulo is commented upon by Mr. Ling, in The Americas, November 1915: "From the time of leaving Sao Paulo city we passed through a gently rolling country; the characteristics are pastoral and agricultural. In the pastoral sec tion fine bunches of native cattle and of cross breeds between native and Hereford were seen in such quantities as to give the impression that the number far exceeds the generally ac cepted statement. Statistics show that the number of cattle, horses, sheep, etc., has more than doubled in the past 10 years.° Mr. Ling was informed by the large fazenda managers that increased interest was being given to cat tle-raising. In 1913 there were in Brazil 30, 705,080 cattle, 18,399,000 swine, 10,653,000 sheep, 7,289,050 horses and 3,208,000 mules. In July 1917 these had increased to a total of 80,330,000 head. As .the returns are confessedly incomplete and as, in many states, it is cus tomary to report only a part of the growth of stock, to avoid the payment of state taxes, the real figures may be taken as considerably larger than the official, which are based on the census returns for taxation purposes.