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from others;

very willing to keep locked up
but whether from his former notes being
intrinsically without merit, or from its being
expected that so humble a being as a Trans-
lator, should steer at as great a distance
as possible from the higher parts of author-
ship, the Translator candidly confesses
that the reception of these notes, so far as
he has had occasion to learn, was not such
as to induce him to resume the office of
Commentator.

From an idea that the weights used in the original, where the contrary was not expressly stated, were French, the Translator uniformly considered marcs to mean marcs. of France; and it was not till near the end of the third volume, he discovered that the author meant marcs of Castille, which are to the French as 541 to 576: the conversions of marcs therefore, as far as page 394 of the third volume, are all in a slight degree erroneous, and to be reduced to

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accuracy require to be multiplied by .93923.

The Translator in printing a list of Errata has no doubt that it might be easily increased by an attentive and intelligent reader. Those who know the difficulty of carrying a work through the press with a tolerable degree of correctness, will not perhaps be the most forward to accuse him of inaccuracy.

1

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BOOK IV.

CHAPTER X.

Plants supplying raw materials for manufactures and commerce.-Rearing of cattle.-Fisheries.-Agricultural produce estimated from the value of the tithes.

ALTHOUGH the Mexican agriculture, like the agriculture of every country which supplies the wants of its own population, is principally directed towards alimentary plants; New Spain, however, is not less rich in those commodities exclusively called Colonial; that is to say, in the productions which supply raw materials for the commerce and manufacturing industry of Europe. That vast kingdom unites, in this point of view, the advantages of New England with those of the West India Islands. It is beginning in a particular manner to enter into competition with these islands, now that the civil war of St. Domingo, and the devastation of the French sugar colonies have, rendered the cultivation of colonial commodities more profitable on the continent of Ame

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Climates

rica. It is even observable that in Mexico this species of cultivation has made a much more considerable progress than that of corn. In these climates, the same extent of ground, for example, an acre of 5368 square metres *, yields to the cultivator from 80 to 100 francs. in wheat, 250 francs in cotton, and 450 francs in sugar. The difference in the value of the produce being then so enormous, we ought by no means to wonder that the Mexican colonist gives to colonial commodities a preference over barley and wheat. But this predilection will never disturb the equilibrium which has hitherto existed between the different branches of agriculture, because, fortunately, a great part of New Spain, situated under a climate more cold than temperate, is unfit for the production of sugar, coffee, cocoa, indigo, and

cotton.

The cultivation of the sugar-cane has made such rapid progress within these last years, that the exportation of sugar at the port of Vera Cruz actually amounts to more than

* 57,780 square feet. Trans,

†This estimate is looked upon as the most exact by the colonists of Louisiana near New Orleans. They calculate Ton 20 bushels of wheat, 250 pounds of cotton, and 1000 pounds of sugar per acre. This is the mean produce; but may be easily conceived that these results must be modified by a number of local circumstances.

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