. The earth and its inhabitants ... thus become the national vice. A new zone of agricultural enterprise is being gradually developed in theregion of the eastern Yungas. Within a recent epoch, the capitalists who hadreceived government concessions of vast domains in these favoured lands, occupiedthemselves exclusively with the cinchona industry. The native cascarilleros, 390 SOUTH AMERICA—THE ANDES EEGIOXS. bark strippers, had no occupation except that of searching the forests in alldirections in quest of the finest trees. A period of systematic culture had evensucceeded to that of the reckles
. The earth and its inhabitants ... thus become the national vice. A new zone of agricultural enterprise is being gradually developed in theregion of the eastern Yungas. Within a recent epoch, the capitalists who hadreceived government concessions of vast domains in these favoured lands, occupiedthemselves exclusively with the cinchona industry. The native cascarilleros, 390 SOUTH AMERICA—THE ANDES EEGIOXS. bark strippers, had no occupation except that of searching the forests in alldirections in quest of the finest trees. A period of systematic culture had evensucceeded to that of the reckless destruction of the sjDontaneous growths in theforests of the Yungas valleys. Four million trees had been planted, of which500,000 had arrived at maturity, when the propagation of the plant in India,Java and other region?, arrested the progress of the industry in Bolivia, where theabsence of communications made all competition hopeless. The bark fell rapidly in Fig. 147.—Chief Minebal Deposits of 1 : 18,000, 310 Miles. price, and the planters were compelled in many districts to give up the struggleand turn their attention to the cultivation of coca ; in 1885 the coca crop wasvalued at £343,000, and some of the exquisitely-flavoured Yungas coffee has alsobegun to reach the European markets. But cinchona has been chiefly replaced by rubber, and this new industry hasdone more than scientific zeal to forward the exploration of the eastern streamsflowing to the Madeira or directly to the Amazons. In the basin of the Madre deDies the rubber-seekers are already acquainted with all the valleys, and have MATERIAL CONDITION OF BOLIVIA. 391 opened tracks in all directions, enabling them in their daily rounds to visit everyplant, usually about 150, comprised in their beat. According to Guillaume, thisindustry began on the banks of the Madre de Dios in 1883, and spread rapidlythroughout the whole region. In 1890 about 3,000 persons found employment inthis district p
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectgeography, bookyear18
