FORDLANDIA RISES AS INDUSTRIAL CITY IN AMAZON JUNGLE

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6849, 2 March 1929, Page 3

FORDLANDIA RISES AS INDUSTRIAL CITY IN AMAZON JUNGLE

Connected with the bruited States by Ford-owned and Ford-operated steamships; the new town of Fordlandia is rising in the Amazon jungle. The new rubber enterprise in Brazil has been a signal for labourers, and hundreds of workmen from the upper and lower Amazon have made their way to Fordlandia by native canoes, as well as aboard steamers. i

Fordlandia is being started on the Tapajos, 100 miles upstream from Santarem on the Amazon. The Tapajos, flowing northward, pours its waters into the Amazon near Santarcm. Today Santarem is reviving actively unknown since “rubber was king of the jungle.” It is a base of operations slightly removed from actual operations—the fields where men and machines are attacking and clearing the jungle. Half a hundred acres are already reclaimed. Following the outfielders, the planting squads are beginning to move over the cleared lands, starting the young rubber trees in regular rows. At least threo thousand trees must be planted each year in accordance with the contract.

This latest attack on Brazilian wilds is mado by the Ford Motor Company of Brazil, one of the best equipped and most liberally financed expeditions that ever entered that region. At field headquarters at Boa Vista, on the Tapajos, are labourers, homes, hospitals, stores, machines, tractors, shops, engineers, managers, serving or operating in accordance with the dictates of modern science and business efficiency.