much in grain, has a climate which differs essentially from that of the torrid zone, and the soil preserves a certain degree of humidity from the beneficent inundations of the Nile. However, the vegetables, which are of the same kind with our cerealia, grow only wild in temperate climates, and even in those only of the old continent. With the exception of a few gigantic arundinaceous which are social plants, the gramina appear in general infinitely rarer in the torrid zone than in the temperate zone, where they have the ascendancy, as it were, over the other vegetables. We ought not, then, to be astonished that the cerealia, notwithstanding the great flexibility of organization attributed to them, and which is common to them with the domestic animals, thrive better on the central table-land of Mexico, in the hilly region, where they find the climate of Rome and Milan, than in the plains in the vicinity of the equinoxial ocean. Were the soil of New Spain watered by more frequent rains, it would be one of the most fertile countries cultivated by man in the two hemispheres. The hero*, who, in the midst of a bloody war, had his eyes continually fixed on every branch of national industry, Hernan Cor *Letter to the Emperor Charles, dated from the great city of Temixtitan the 15th October, 1524. which, according to his very succinct description, resembles the corn of abundance (triticum compositum), which is believed to be a native of Egypt. Notwithstanding every information which I procured during my stay in the intendancy of Valladolid, it was impossible for me to clear up this important point in the history of cerealia. Nobody there knew any thing of a wheat peculiar to the country, and I suspect that Hernandez gave the name of triticum michuacanense to some variety of European grain become wild and growing in a very fertile soil. The fecundity of the tlaolli, or Mexican maize, is beyond any thing that can be imagined in Europe. The plant, favoured by strong heats and much humidity, acquires a height of from two to three metres*. In the beautiful plains which extend from San Juan del Rio to Queretaro, for example in the lands of the great plantation of l'Esperanza, one fanega of maize produces some times eight hundred. Fertile lands yield, commu. nibus annis, from three to four hundred. In the environs of Valladolid a harvest is reckoned bad which yields only the seed 130 or 150 fold. Where the soil is even most sterile it still returns from sixty to eighty grains for one. It is believed that we may estimate the produce of maize in general, in the equinoxial region of the kingdom of New Spain, at a hundred and fifty for one. The valley of Toluca alone yields annually more than 600,000 fanegas *, on an extent of thirty square leagues, of which a great part is cultivated in agave. Between the parallels of 18° and 22o the frosts and cold winds render this cultivation by no means lucrative on plains whose height ex· ceeds three thousand metres †. The annual produce of maize in the intendancy of Guadalaxara is, as we have already observed, more than 80 millions of kilogrammes . Under the temperate zone, between the 33° and 58° of latitude, in New California for example, maize produces in general only, communibus annis, from 70 to 80 for one. By comparing the manuscript memoirs of Father Fermin Lassuen which I possess with the statistical tables published in the historical account of the voyage of M. de Galeano, I should be enabled to indicate village by village the quantities of maize sown and reaped. I find that in 1791 twelve missions of New California || reaped 7625 fanegas on a piece of ground sown with 96. In 1801 the harvest of 16 missions was 4661 fanegas, while the quantity sown only amounted to 66. Hence for the * A fanega weighs four arrobas or a hundred pounds, in some provinces 120 pounds (from 50 to 60 kilogrammes). Author. 600,000 fanegas therefore 66,210,600 lbs. Trans. † 9842 feet. Trans. = 176,562,400 lbs. avoirdupoise. Trans. former year the produce was 79, and for the latter 70 for one. This coast in general appears better adapted for the cultivation of the cerealia of Europe. However it is proved by the same tables, that in some parts of New California, for example, in the fields belonging to the villages of San Buena Ventura and Capistrano, the maize has frequently yielded from 180 to 200 for one. Although a great quantity of other grain is cultivated in Mexico, the maize must be considered as the principal food of the people, as also of the most part of the domestic animals. The price of this commodity modifies that of all the others, of which it is, as it were, the natural measure. When the harvest is poor, either from the want of rain or from premature frost, the famine is general, and produces the most fatal consequences. Fowls, turkies, and even the larger cattle, equally suffer from it. A traveller who passes through a country in which the maize has been frost bit finds neither egg nor poultry, nor arepa bread, nor meal for the atolli, which is a nutritive and agreeable soup. The dearth of provisions is especially felt in the environs of the Mexican mines; in those of Guanaxuato, for example, where fourteen thousand mules, which are necessary in the process of amalgamation, annually consume an enormous quantity of maize. We have already mentioned the influence which dearths have periodically had on the progress of population in New Spain. The frightful dearth of 1784 was the consequence of a strong frost, which was felt at an epoqua when it was least to be expected in the torrid zone, the 28th August, and at the inconsiderable height of 1800 metres above the level of the ocean. Of all the gramina cultivated by man none is so unequal in its produce. This produce varies in the same field according to the changes of humidity and the mean temperature of the year, from 40 to 200 or 300 for one. If the harvest is good, the colonist makes his fortune more rapidly with maize than with wheat; and we may say,that this cultivation participates in both the advantages and disadvantages of the vine. The price of maize varies from two livres ten sous to 25 livres the fanega. The mean price is five livres in the interior of the country; but it is increased so much by the carriage, that during my stay in the intendancy of Guanaxuato, the fanega cost at Salamanca 9, at Queretaro 12, and at San Luis Potosi 22 livres. In a country where there are no magazines, and where the natives merely live from hand to mouth, the people suffer terribly whenever the maize remains for any length of time at two piastres or ten livres the fanega. The natives then feed on unripe fruit, on cactus berries, and on roots. This insufficient food occa * 5904 feet. Trans. |