In the past few years many companies have been formed for cutting wood in the Gran Chaco and also for extracting tannin. The district of Resistencia is extremely rich in quebracho, and Santiago del Estero continues to produce it in increasing quantities, as well as firewood, which is extensively used by the sugar-mills of Tucuman. Firewood and posts are also largely produced in Cordoba, and Tucuman and Salta provide woods for building and cabinet-making. The timber industry has now been extended to Tierra del Fuego, where saw-mills have also been established; and when internal communications have been improved it will doubtless be developed on a large scale, for the wood is used for sleepers, building, and furniture-making. It has been suggested that the abundant poplars might be employed in making paper pulp; and, indeed, the timber resources of Argentina, although less vast than those of most of her neighbours, are certain to be a source of increasing profit. The export of quebracho logs, which now amounts to 254,571 tons, has been almost stationary for some years; but the figures for the extract, which in 1902 were only 9,099, are now 48,161.[121] The oldest and most celebrated of the forest products is _yerba maté_. Pedro Lozano declared that the tree which produced that vegetable surpassed all other trees in utility. "The tree,"[122] he says, "is very high, leafy, and bulky. The leaf is also somewhat bulky, very green, and in shape like a tongue. The _yerba_ is obtained by cutting the branches, and placing them upon brushwood, and roasting them slowly; by hand labour they grind the leaves thus roasted in holes sunk in the ground and lined with skins. In all this process the labour of the Indians is so severe that they sweat profusely, because they work the whole day without intermission and with very little food. They eat nothing all day but such forest fruits as chance gives them, and when they have had their supper at night their repose is brief, for within four hours they are obliged to rise and carry on their shoulders the ground leaves to other places, where they make leather packages to take them to other provinces." Lozano speaks with indignation of this cruelty to the Indians, which had depopulated all that part of the world except the Misiones. He gives an elaborate account of the history and uses of _yerba maté_. Its popularity has never waned, among the country people at least, for its bitter taste and stimulating properties are invaluable to the tired rider, and it fills the place that tea does to the Australian Bushman or coffee to the South African Boer. The tea is drunk through a _bombilla_, or tube, which is placed in the _maté_, or gourd containing the infusion, and it is passed round among the company. _Yerba maté_ is raised more extensively in Paraguay and Brazil than in Argentina; but the value of the crop is well recognised, and recently the Government distributed fifty thousand plants among settlers.