avoirdupois of wheat, and
99 of potatoes. The immediate effect of this facility of supplying the
wants of nature is, that the man who can, by labouring two days in the
week, maintain himself and family, will devote the remaining five to
idleness or dissipation. The same regions that produce the banana, also
yield the two species of manioc, the bitter and the sweet: both of which
appear to have been cultivated before the conquest.--_Foreign Quarterly
Review._
* * * * *
INDIAN CORN.
The most valuable article in South American agriculture, is
unquestionably the maize, or Indian corn, which is cultivated with
nearly uniform success in every part of the republic. It appears to
be a true American grain, notwithstanding many crude conjectures to
the contrary. Sometimes it has been known to yield, in hot and humid
regions, 800 fold; fertile lands return from 300 to 400; and a return of
130 to 150 fold is considered bad--the least fertile soils giving 60 to
80. The maize forms the great bulk of food of the inhabitants, as well
as of the domestic animals; hence the dreadful consequences of a failure
of this crop. It is eaten either in the form of unfermented bread or
_tortillas_ (a sort of bannock, as it is called in Scotland;) and,
reduced to flour, is mingled with water, forming either _atolle_ or
various kinds of _chicha_. Maize will yield, in very favourable
situations, two or three crops per year; though it is but seldom that
more than one is gathered.
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