Another forest product is the mate which to Brazilians is known as herva matte or mate, to other South Americans as yerba or yerba mate, and to foreigners as Brazil or Par aguay tea. The chief mate-producing state, that of Parana, adjoins the great coffee produc ing state, Sao Paulo, and exports many mil lion pounds of this Brazilian °tee annually. The mate tree (in appearance not unlike a small evergreen oak or ilex with a heavy and fleshy leaf) grows freely in the forest, entirely without cultivation; and in the forest the leaves undergo, as soon as they are plucked, a first preparation which both diminishes their weight before transportation and also keeps them from fermenting. They are dried at a fire, and then packed in sacks which are sent to the mills at Curitiba which reduce the leaves to powder and separate the various qualities. Aromatic prop erties retained in the dried and powdered leaves are extracted by means of infusion. As a stimulating and wholesome beverage habitu ally used throughout a large part — especially the southern part — of the continent, mate might well be called, not by the competing names Brazilian or Paraguayan, but more simply the South American tea. The exporta tion of this South American tea, then, is to the state of Parana what the exportation of coffee is to the vastly more important neighbor state, the basis, practically, of economic achievement. In 1915 yerba mate was exported to the extent of 75,885 metric tons.
Sugar.— But the basis of economic achieve ment in Brazil was formerly the exportation of a product the cultivation of which, on a large scale, was dependent upon slave-labor. Sugar, during a long period, held the position in the country's economic life now occupied by coffee, rubber and South American tea. At the pres ent time the sugar-cane, besides being grown in the chief sugar centres, is a staple crop, com monly used for the production of an alcohol, or sometimes the crude variety of sugar called raga dura. Sugar is no longer in the first rank of exports, however; and a study of its decline brings to attention the most interesting phase of the story of the manumission of slaves. Denis says that the planting of sugar created, as early as the 17th century, not only a long enduring industry but also long-enduring wealth; and all over Brazil the cultivation of the sugar-cane was connected with slave-labor. As early as 1875 the decay of the sugar industry had become manifest in all parts of the country, and a severe drought hastened its downfall. Naturally there was a rapid fall in the market value of slaves. alit the same time the prov inces of the south, which were then nearing the height of their development, could not obtain sufficient labor, and, while recruiting the first white immigrants, they made a last effort to renew their staff of slaves. There was thus a heavy exportation of slaves from the north to the south.' Now, as has often happened, the institution of slavery, made less harsh by custom, did not arouse public opinion; but the spectacle of a commerce in slaves did violently arouse it. The departure of those human car
goes for the south was regarded with indigna tion.° The abolitionists succeeded in rendering such shipments impossible; and then the value of the slaves, for whom there was no adequate employment, decreased rapidly. ((When their enfranchisement was determined upon it was possible to buy them out at reduced prices; less on account of the violent propaganda of the abolitionists than because [so many of] the sugar plantations had disappeared)) In 1915, 59,074 metric tons (2,204.6 lbs.) of sugar were exported from Brazil.
Brazil has plenty of wheat lands but few of them are used for wheat growing. Yet where experiments have been tried of grow ing wheat on the Brazilian uplands, more es pecially in the southern states, they have proved successful. Brazil imported, in 1916, flour and wheat to the value of over $60,000,000; yet official investigation made in that year showed that pure wheat bread is a thing prac tically unknown in Brazil, where the bakers adulterate the wheat flour with mandioca, bread-fruit flower or corn-meal. Mandioca is the most common adulterating mixture for the making of °Brazilian which °generally consists of mandioca and wheat flour in about equal parts°; though often the proportion of the former is greater than the latter. Were the law to insist on the bakers selling pure wheat flour bread, Brazil would require to grow, to supply her own needs, wheat to the value of from $60,000,000 to $100,000,000 per year at the prices prevailing in 1916.
Vegetable Oils.—Already in 1917, the state of Sao Paulo, which had previously been a heavy importer of vegetable oils, had reached a position where it had begun to export these oils instead of importing them. Several mills had been established, one of them of large capacity and most modern type, for the manufacture of cotton-seed oil. Previous to the establishment of these mills most of the cotton seed from the 1,000,000 bales or more raised annually in the country was left to rot in heaps where it had been extracted from the cotton. Already large shipments of Brazilian cotton-seed oil had been made in 1917 to Argentina, where it brought, in the market, the same prices as the best foreign oils. In 1913 the state of Sao Paulo imported 2,304,823 pounds of cotton-seed oil, and in 1916 only 244,794 pounds. The problem before the oil manufacturers in 1917 was the getting of the cotton seed to the mills from the widely dis tributed cotton territory which is yearly ex tending itself. Castor oil is another business which has already begun to interest the manu facturers of vegetable oils in Brazil. Several castor mills were in operation in the state of Sao Paulo in 1917, and orders had been placed in the United States for an extensive modern castor mill for the city of Sao Paulo. The castor bean grows well over a considerable part of Brazil, and the oil from most of the castor districts is good.