"The various kinds of work carried on in the mission towns were of an amazingly comprehensive nature. Even their most hostile critics have never attempted to dispute the administrative abilities of the missionaries. These found a full opportunity in the fertile soil and varied products of the country. One of the first industries they took up was that of collecting the famous Paraguayan tea, the yerba maté, from the forests in which it grew. Undoubtedly this was one of the severest tasks which the Guaranís had to undertake, since the yerba-tree, the _Ilèx Paraguayensis_, favours the denser forests that are the haunt of the jaguar, the venomous snake and countless noxious insects. Moreover, as the yerba maté-trees in the neighbourhood of the settlements became used up, the journeys of the Indians grew longer and more difficult, and the return marches, under the burden of the yerba loads, still more strenuous. "Another industry which rapidly attained to great importance was that of cattle-breeding. It is difficult to picture the Jesuit Fathers galloping with flying robes after the scampering herds of cattle, gathering them into _rodeos_, and 'parting' them after the fashion of the gaucho--and this they undoubtedly did not do! At the same time, it is certain that they must have closely supervised their dusky herdsmen; for the numbers of their cattle rapidly increased to an extent which could only have been possible under an efficient, and comparatively scientific, management. This will be evident when it is explained that more than thirty thousand head of cattle grazed on one of their estates alone, and that at the time of the expulsion of the company their pastures were found to contain nearly 800,000 cattle, nearly 100,000 horses and mules, and over 200,000 sheep and goats. "Beyond this there were the fields of cotton, maize, rice, sugar-cane, tobacco, and all those cereals which went to make up the store of the mission towns, as well as the spreading groves of orange-trees, and all the fruits of the sub-tropics and of Southern Europe which were cultivated with immense success in the rich red soil of Paraguay. It is a tribute to the energy of the Jesuits, moreover, that sufficient wheat was grown within the missions to render them self-supporting in this respect, when the small amount of wheat is taken into consideration that is at present produced within the Republic of Paraguay.