Those who may be so fortunate as to obtain control of Paraguay’s highways, the Paraguay and Pilcomayo, and supplement them by extending its 155 miles of railway into a system that will develop the vast agricultural and mineral empire of central and southern Brazil and Bolivia, and carry the produce to the Argentine seaboard, will gain a prize unequaled in the railroad world, and make of Paraguay a country of first importance on the continent. Throughout the country the forests are being cleared to make room for _potreros_ (cattle ranches) and the growing agricultural industries. _Yerbales_ are coming more and more under the scientific culture which greatly enhances the value of the country’s leading product, _yerba maté_, or Paraguay tea. Paraguay is the namesake and chief producer of the famous _yerba maté_ or Paraguay tea, which is the national drink—the cup of ceremony and popular tipple throughout the central part of South America below the coffee belt; that is, on the Argentine _Campo_, in Uruguay, Paraguay, the lower part of Brazil, Bolivia and Chile. So well adapted is the beverage to the climate that the German colonists forsake their beer and the European-Latins their sweet cordials for the stimulating and non-alcoholic native product. The _yerba_ leaf is prepared by steeping in boiling water, as in the case of the tea with which the rest of the world is familiar. The _maté_ is the dried gourd in which the tea is brewed. Into the aperture left by removing the stem, a tube (the _bombilla_), made of reed or bone, is inserted and through this the drinker sucks the refreshing brew. Whenever the occasion offers “_Toma usted maté?_” is almost a form of greeting in the _yerba maté_ countries, so universal is its popularity. Among the rich the _maté_ and _bombilla_ are fashioned in costly metals, but elsewhere the gourd and reed serve their purpose with equal, if not greater, satisfaction. The _ilex paraguayensis_, to give the herb its botanical name, is an evergreen tree or shrub from twelve to twenty-five feet high, with bright green leaves clustered in a bushy mass that cause it from a distance to resemble the orange tree. Although much of the _yerba maté_ is still obtained from the immense natural forests, the ever-increasing demand has made cultivation a necessity. Many plantations have been successfully laid out, and crops of leaves have recently been gathered with commercially profitable results. The scientific methods now being adopted in the _yerbales_ (_yerba_ plantations) of Paraguay to supplant the destructive system of the past will insure for this growing industry a rich return to the owners.