"What are the annual earnings of the agricultural worker? The conditions vary in different localities, but we may estimate that the colonist receives about 60 or 80 milreis--£4 to £5 7s. at the present rate of exchange--per 1,000 stems of coffee. This is a certain resource; a sort of fixed minimum wage. To this we must add the price of several days' labour at about 2 milreis, or 2s. 8d. A still more irregular element in the profits of a colonist's family is the amount it receives for the harvest. By consulting the books of several _fazendas_ I was able to realize the extent of this irregularity. Sometimes the wage paid for the harvest is insignificant, while sometimes it is greater by itself than all the other sources of income put together. It is calculated at so much per measure of berries given in by the colonist. When the branches are heavily laden, not only is the total quantity greater, but the labour is performed more rapidly, and each day is more productive. Years of good harvest are for the colonist, as for the planter, years of plenty. With this important element essentially variable, how can we estimate the annual earnings of the colonist? "His expenses, again, cannot be estimated with any exactitude. An economic family will reduce them to practically nothing, if it has the good fortune to escape all sickness, and so dispense with the doctor, the chemist and the priest. "What really enables the colonists to make both ends meet is the crops they have the right to raise on their own account, sometimes on allotments reserved for the purpose set apart from the coffee, and sometimes between the rows of the coffee-trees. They often think more of the clauses in their contract which relate to these crops than to those which determine their wages in currency. A planter told me that he had learned that a party of colonists intended to leave him after the harvest. We met some of them on the road, and I questioned them. 'Is it true that you are engaged to work on Senhor B----'s _fazenda_ for the coming year?'--'Yes.'--'What reason have you for changing your _fazenda_? Will you be better paid there? Don't you get over £6 a thousand trees here?'--'Yes.'--'How much do they offer you over there?'--'Only £4.'--'Then why do you go?'--'Because there we can plant our maize among the coffee.'