As the country unites in a small space a great variety of climates,and as the maize almost never succeeds at the same time in the warm region (tierras calientes) and on the central table-land in the terras frias, the interior commerce is singularly vivified by the transport of this grain. Maize compared with European grain has the disadvantage of containing a smaller quantity of nutritive substance in a greater volume. This circumstance, and the difficulty of the roads on the declivities of the mountains, present obstacles to its exportation, which will be more frequent when the construction of the fine causeway from Vera Cruz to Xalapa and Perote shall be finished. The islands in general, and especially the island of Cuba, consume an enormous quantity of maize. These islands are frequently in want of it, because the interest of their inhabitants is almost exclusively fixed on the cultivation of sugar and coffee; although it has been long observed by well informed agriculturists, that in the district contained between the Havanah, the port of Batabano and Matanzas, fields cultivated with maize and by free hands yield a greater nett revenue than a sugar plantation, for which enormous advances are necessary in the purchase and maintenance of slaves and the construction of edifices. If it is probable that in Chili formerly, besides maize, there were two other gramina with farina ceous seed sown, which belonged to the same genus as our barley and wheat, it is no less certain that before the arrival of the Spaniards in America none of the cerealia of the old continent were known there. If we suppose that all mankind are descended from the same stock, we might be tempted to admit that the Americans, like the Atlantes*, separated from the rest of the human race before the cultivation of wheat on the central plains of Asia. But are we to lose ourselves in fabulous times to explain the ancient communications which appear to have existed between the two continents? In the time of Herodotus all the northern part of Africa presented no other agricultural nations but the Egyptians and the Carthaginianst. In the interior of Asia the tribes of the Mongol race, the Hiong-nu, the Burattes, the Kalkas, and the Sifanes, have constantly lived as wandering shepherds. Now, if the people of central Asia, or if the Lybians of Africa could have passed into the new continent, neither of them would have introduced the cultivation of cerealia. The want of these gramina then proves nothing either against the Asiatic origin of the Americans, or against the possibility of a very recent transmigration. The introduction of European grain having had * See the opinion of Diodorus Siculus. Bibl. lib. III. page Rhodom. 186. ↑ Heeren uber Africa, p. 41. the most beneficial influence on the prosperity of the natives of Mexico, it becomes interesting to relate at what epoqua this new branch of agriculture commenced. A negro slave of Cortez found three or four grains of wheat among the rice which served to maintain the Spanish army. These grains were sown, as it appears, before the year 1530. History has brought down to us the name of a Spanish lady, Maria d'Escobar, the wife of Diego de Chaves, who first carried a few grains of wheat into the city of Lima, then called Rimac. The produce of the harvest which she obtained from these grains was distributed for three years among the new colonists, so that each farmer received twenty or thirty grains. Garcilasso already complained of the ingratitude of his countrymen, who hardly knew the name of Maria d'Escobar. We are ignorant of the epoqua at which the cultivation of cerealia commenced in Peru, but it is certain that in 1547 wheaten bread was hardly known in the city of Cuzco *. At Quito the first European grain was sown near the convent of Saint Francis by Father Josse Rixi, a native of Gand, in Flanders. The monks still show there with enthusiasm the earthen vase in which the first wheat came from *Commentarios reales, ix. 24. t. ii. p. 332. "Maria de Escobar, digna de un gran estado, llevò el trigo al Peru. Por otro tanto adoraron los gentiles a Ceres por Diosa, y de esta matrona no hicieron cuenta los de mi tierra.” Europe, which they look upon as a precious relic*. Why have not every where the names of those been preserved, who, in place of ravaging the earth, have enriched it with plants useful to the human race†? The temperate region, especially the climate. when the mean heat of the year does not exceed from 18 to 19 centigrade degrees, appears most favourable to the cultivation of cerealia, embracing under this denomination only the nutritive gramina known to the ancients, namely, wheat, spelt, barley, oats, and rye. In fact, in the equinoxial part of Mexico, the cerealia of Europe are nowhere cultivated in plains of which the elevation is under from 8 to 9 hundred metres§; and we have already observed, that on the declivity of the Cordilleras between Vera Cruz and Acapulco, we generally see only the commencement of this cultivation at an elevation of 12 or 13 hundred metres ¶. A long experience has *See my Tableaux de la Nature, t. II. p. 166. + Every English reader will recollect the fine passage in Gulliver's Travels on this subject. Trans. † 64° and 66° of Fahr. Trans. || Triticum (Tugos), spelta (3ɛa), hordeum (xgiŋ), avena (Bewuos of Dioscorides, and not the ßçoμos of Theophrastus), and secale (710). I shall not here examine if wheat and barley were really cultivated by the Romans, and if Theophrastus and Pliny knew our secale cereale. Compare Dioscor. ii. 116. iv. 140. page Saracen. 126 and 294. with Columella, II. 10. and Theophr. VIII. 1-4. with Plin. II. 126. § From 2629 to 2952 feet. Trans. proved to the inhabitants of Xalapa that the wheat sown around their city vegetates vigorously, but never produces a single ear. It is cultivated because its straw and its succulent leaves serve for forage (zacate) to cattle. It is very certain, however, that in the kingdom of Guatemala, and consequently nearer the equator, grain ripens at smaller elevations than that of the town of Xalapa. A particular exposure, the cool winds which blow in the direction of the north, and other local causes, may modify the influence of the climate. I have seen in the province of Caraccas the finest harvests of wheat near Victoria (latitude 10° 13′) at five or six hundred metres of absolute elevation; and it appears that the wheaten fields which surround the Quatro villas in the island of Cuba (latitude 21° 58') have still a smaller elevation. At the Isle of France (latitude 20° 10′) wheat is cultivated on a soil almost level with the ocean. * The European colonists have not sufficiently varied their experiments to know what is the minimum of height at which cerealia grow in the equinoxial region of Mexico. The absolute want of rain during the summer months is so much the more unfavourable to the wheat as the heat of the climate is greater. It is true that the droughts and heats are also very considerable in Syria and Egypt; but this last country, which abounds so * 1640 or 1968 feet. 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