case of a man in this valley
who lived to be one hundred and forty-five years old.

In the dense forests of the uplands of Brazil there are people who are
living in the stone age of culture. They are practically wild tribes who
know nothing about the use of metal, in fact, they know but little about
civilization. They are said to be ignorant of common food such as
bananas and rice. They seem to have no idea of a supreme being, believe
in a soul that goes wandering about after death.

In some parts of Brazil rice is cultivated quite extensively and it
makes a cheap food. It is said that in one place a man from Louisiana is
running an experimental rice farm showing the Brazilian farmers how to
cultivate Japanese rice. Rather strange, isn't it, that United States
farmers should be teaching the Brazilian farmers Japanese agriculture?

A peculiar thing about the land of Brazil is the absence of earth worms.
In our country these worms improve the physical condition of the soil
but there this lack is made up by the multiplied millions of ants that
burrow down deep into the earth. In our country, too, the chemical
changes of winter help prepare the soil for the coming crops, but in
Brazil there is no winter season when the land "sleeps" and it does not
seem to be necessary.

While in the great rubber industry of Brazil the trees grow and produce
with but little if any cultivation, this is not true of the coffee
trees. They have to be cultivated and carefully looked after. Insect
pests that are so destructive to coffee trees in many countries, are
almost absent in Brazil and this fact has not a little to do with making
this the greatest coffee country in the world. In the state of Sao
Paulo almost the entire energies of the people are absorbed in the
coffee industry.

This state is a little larger than Colorado and is the most powerful
state of the twenty that make up the United States of Brazil. The name
of the capital is the same as that of the state and the city of Sao
Paulo is about as large as Saint Paul, Minnesota. It is noted for its
beauty and industry. The climate is delightful, always cool, but never
freezing cold. With more than one hundred elementary schools besides
numerous high schools and colleges it is perhaps the greatest
educational center of the country. Near this city is the largest coffee
plantation in the world. It contains something like eight million trees
and takes about eight thousand people to ru