The importance and stability of the large works has fixed the labour market on the right bank of the Parana, and there is no need to go to Corrientes to look for men. They come of their own accord. A daily service of small steamers brings them to all the ports which dispatch _quebracho_. The left bank, on Argentine territory, has also no hiring centre, such as there still are at Asuncion and Concepcion in Paraguay. Even on its own land the works leaves the working of the forest to contractors, from whom it buys the timber. But the _obrajeros_, whether they work in the company's forests or their own, are very dependent upon the works. The contracts vary according as they are owners or otherwise; according to whether they undertake to deliver the timber at the stations or leave it where it is felled; and according to whether they have the requisite oxen and waggons or have to loan these from the company. They draw advances from the company, and, on the other hand, they pledge themselves to purchase what they require for their workers at the company's stores. The profit of these sales increases the revenue of the works. The company monopolizes all trade, both import and export. It exercises an absolute sovereignty over the forest. It has merely deigned to grant the railway company space enough to construct its lines and its stations. The last forestry centre in modern Argentina is in the province of Misiones on the upper Parana. Posadas is its chief station, and protects its southern outlet. Its influence extends beyond the Argentine frontier, over a small part of Brazil and Paraguay. In Misiones there are two types of forest, which differ a good deal from each other, while neither resembles the _quebracho_ forest. One is the forest of araucarias (_pinos_) which covers the elevated tablelands at a height above 2,000 feet. The other is the tropical forest, rich in essences and of perennial vegetation, which fills the bottoms and slopes of the valleys. The pine, which is also much worked on the Brazilian tableland, yields an excellent white wood, suitable instead of the northern pine. It would find a ready market at Buenos Aires, but it has never been worked on Argentine territory because of the great distance of the woods from a navigable river. On account of its position on the tableland the araucaria has to wait for the railways of some future date.[49] As to the leafy tropical forest it includes a number of useful varieties (_timbo_, _lapacho_, _etc._), but the most esteemed of all is the cedar. Its wood is rose-coloured, scented, and fine-grained, and very suitable for furniture. At the time of D'Orbigny's travels the inhabitants of Corrientes were looking out for cedars from the mountains brought down the river when in flood. The _obrajes_ of cedar-wood now extend twenty miles or so on the Argentine bank, and forty miles in the Paraguay bank, which is more even and better for transport. The trunks are floated in rafts down to Posadas;