2. Reduction of living expenses of the rubber-collector, by increased Amazonian cultivation of cereals, beans, mandioca, fruit, vegetables, etc. 3. Creation of a sturdier and larger labour supply, by rendering rubber regions healthy, improving living conditions, and thus inviting and retaining permanent dwellers. 4. Reduction of export taxes imposed by the State authorities of the rubber regions. The question of Amazon plantations is hotly debated. A few exist, and are living proofs of the fact that planted rubber kept clean of other growth yields latex at four or five years, at which time it is as large as a wild rubber twelve years old; but opponents of the system ask why they should plant “_when Nature has already planted_?” and declare that the best thing to do is to tap the latex of more of the reserves of the interior, calculated at three hundred million trees. Arguments in favour of this system include insistence upon the superiority of the latex from matured trees slowly developed in their native habitat, the chief reason of the high resilient quality of the Amazonian product; it is along the upper rivers of the Amazonian fluvial network that the “black” _hevea_ is found most abundantly, yielding latex of the best variety, tough, elastic, resilient, and always fetching a better price than the _fraca_ (weak) rubber from the latex of the “white” _hevea_, or the product of the “red,” which coagulates badly, and is listed as “entre fina” instead of “fina.” It is partly because the seeds which Wickham took from the Tapajoz in 1876 were of the “white” _hevea brasiliensis_ variety, common in these lower regions, that the product of the plantations is more or less of the “fraca” quality; only a few hundred acres of the entire Eastern area under cultivation is planted with the fine “black” rubbers. Can the untouched rubber regions of the upper rivers be opened up? The districts richest in _seringueiras_ are frequently on the margins of these rivers, accessible by boat, but there are other areas thickly sown with the trees which, as in the Acre Territory, could be served best by a railroad line, such as has been projected to run across this region. Other plans deal with drainage of forestal areas, now rendered exceedingly unhealthy by their swampy, mosquito-breeding condition, and the introduction of immigrants accustomed to torrid climates. At present the working capacity of the collector is reduced from a possible two hundred and ten days, during the seven months of tapping, to an average of one hundred and twenty, chiefly as the result of sickness: he produces thus only about four hundred and fifty kilos of dry rubber, when under better conditions he could be expected to market about seven hundred kilos.