Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1916-07-21

pounds and the third about $50 pounds
The fibre is a little of everything.
Some stalks have cotton with a staple
of = inches and very strong, while
others have the shortest staple I've
ever seen. A cotton broker from
Houston, Texas, came down on the
"Vanhon" when came and he tolC
me in Rio that he had found samples
that measured over inches and Of a
finer quality than bthe best Egyptian
cotton. A Texas man who has charge
of the demonstration work for the
Leopoldina Railway, an English sys-
TEN, told me that with Mebane Tri-
umph seed imported from Texas, he
made over two bales per acre in some
of his demonstrations The varieties
used have completely played out. The
all the year growing season withplenty
of rain during the first 6 months of
the plants growth, has a tendency to
put on maximum stalk growth, and
with no selection of seed for ages the
plant has almost lost its fruiting prop
critics. All of Brazil grows annually
about three times as much cotton as
Bolivar county. Some day this coun-
try will produce 10000, 900 bales a year
if the world needs it.
The cotton is carried sometimes as
far as 20 miles to a gin and is carried
on small pack mules, about $50 pounds
per mule. The gins are small The
largest | We seen gins about bales q
day and the press is a hand press. The
bales are square like ours but weigh
only 1870 pounds. Brazil exports but
very little cotton. She has sufficient
mills to work it all up. Cotton is
bringing about 15c,, but seed is selling
for about Sc ton.
! may not advance the cotton bust
ness much, but | have splendid OPP
portunity to try. | shall work with
the individual farmers and | have all
the latitude one could ask for. am
privileged to use any seed | want to.
All the fertilizer, the seed and impIe-
ments are furnished free to the farmer
by the state government. | shall use
Triumph, Durango, Texas Big Boil,
and perhaps Cooks and Cleveland
Big Boil ~
| travel with guide who speaks
about as much English as | speak Por-
tugese, so we are a conversationless
pair.
There is very little corn grown here,
tho it seems to do well. 1t is grown
four and five plants to the hill. am
not supplied with any facts, tho,
that justify me in telling anything to
measure up to the stories about alfalfa
and cotton.
Rice is grown pretty extensively
and is eaten to about the same extent.
The pasture grasses are Jagaqua,
pronounced zhar-a-gwa, Copim Gordu-
ra, a species Of pasphalum and some
Bermuda. but both the pospalum and
the Bermuda are larger and coarser
than with you, but the Bermuda
makes a luxuriant growth. The Java
qua grass is similar to Johnson grass,
but grows larger, hasn't quite the
root system, the seed very much
smaller and stands pasruring much
better. Pastures are green all the
year and as there is no rain through
the winter months the need of barn
is nil. The native cattle are large
with horns about two to three feet
long. The native stock is being rap
idly crsssed with the hump-shouldered
Zubu breed, which is no improvement.
Cattle are very fat now, and are being
to the packing houses and from
there to England and France. Steers
are selling for about &c. now and hides
at about zoe. a pound. The cattle
tick is here as it used to be with you,
but the best farmers have good watts
and are dipping regularly,
Sugar cane does well here, and is
planted about every third and fourth
year. 1t seeds here and is in seed
now
Very few of the farmers have any
plants. The land is not broken but
the seed of all crops are planted with
hoes and cultivated the same way. The
surprise is that they make any crops
at all. The rice farmers. tho, are buy
ing improved implements, especially
the small farm tractor.
The Negroes are idesome and lazy.
They can live so easily that work is not
at all necessary. Their homes are of
bamboo and mud. Nearly every fami-
ly has few orange trees, some ban
ana bushes and pineapples, small po-
tato patch and patch of Mandioca.
This plant is like the cassava plant
The natives make meal of the roots
30 1t isn't really necessary to work IN
order to live and the natives seem to
have learned that
My acquaintances are very cosmopoli-
tan. I've met people from nearly
European county and good many
from the states.
All that is necessary to hold the
monopoly of cotton production in the
U. S. A. is to let the boil weevi once
reach here. There would be no posi-
bic way of combating the pest here.
Or. e C. Green, a Michigan man,
but who was in Texas ten years, has
charge of the cotton extension work of
all of Brazil.
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