The future of rubber production is a question frequently discussed. It is not immediately probable that the Brazilian output will greatly increase from its average of twenty to thirty thousand tons, not only because more labour is not as yet available, but also because the untapped resources away from the easily reached river banks can scarcely be reached without large outlays on roads, drainage, and other expenses connected with opening-up, which are not more than planned for the time being. Plantation rubber has not yet reached its expected maximum, but no very great areas have been added since 1911, and it is reckoned that with an average yield of four hundred pounds an acre the world’s output will in a few years place from three hundred thousand to three hundred and thirty thousand tons of dry rubber on the markets. Demand by the year 1930, if it kept up at the same ratio as the last five or six years, would require a great deal more than this, no less than three hundred and seventy-three thousand tons of rubber. This will not occur unless automobile sales in the United States keep up also at the same rate (tyres for this industry already take over 100 thousand tons of rubber) but even with a diminution in the increase there appear to be good prospects ahead for the rubber industry: Germany, for instance, will be demanding crude rubber in great quantities when the European War comes to an end, for in spite of the ingenuity of German chemists it is plain that synthetic rubber is not a success. If it were anything like a substitute for the real thing the Central Powers would not have made such constant efforts to obtain even small quantities of the precious gum through the blockade of the Allies. The war has definitely disposed of that spectre. Synthetic rubber requiring a base of a special turpentine is said to be produced at a cost four times that of the gum of the _hevea_, and that figure alone would dispose of it as a commercial possibility, apart from the limitation of turpentine supplies, the need for mixing the solution with real rubber, and the practical demonstration of its unsatisfactory quality. PACKING-HOUSES, MEAT EXPORT, AND CATTLE RAISING The meat business is not a new one in Brazil, for her cattle raising states have had a surplus of beef animals ever since the first _donatarios_ sailed out to take possession of their strips of coast, and brought seeds, saplings, ducks and chickens, goats, horses and cattle along with them: the cattle throve, soon ran wild in the interior, and becoming modified by natural selection developed national types which are today quite distinctive although their European origin is recognizable. The first cattle were shipped to Brazil to the Capitania of S. Vicente in 1534 by Dona Anna Pimentel, consort of the first captain, and manager of the interests of the colony during his absence in India.