204 
to his Mayor Domo not to sow Lucerne seed in it as usual On visiting 
his estate some months afterwards, he was astonished to find the land 
covered with young plants of the forbidden pasture, although none had 
been sown; and on investigating the matter, it was found that the stream 
which irrigated his grounds passed first through several Lucerne fields in 
another part of the valley, from which it had carried and disseminated 
seed over the whole vineyard. 
Humboldt, who has bestowed such unwearied attention on the subject 
of plants cultivated in the New World, (but whose work was published 
previous to that of Mr. Lambert) denies that the Potatoe is indigenous to 
Peru. In his Essai politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne, he 
says, “observe d'abord pour ne consigner ici que des faits exacts, que 
la pomme de terre n'est pas indigène au Pérou, et qu'elle ne se trouve pas 
nulle part sauvage dans la partie de la Cordillére qui est située sous les 
tropiques. Nous avons, M. Bonpland et moi, herborisé sur le dos et sur 
la pente des Andes, depuis les 5° nord, jusqu, áux 12° sud; nous ayons 
pris des informations chez des personnes qui ont examiné cette chaine de 
Montagnes colossales jusqu'a La Paz et á Oruro, et nous sommes sürs que 
dans cette vaste étendue de terrain il ne végete spontanément aucune 
espèce de Solance à racines nourissantes."—* M. M. Ruiz et Payon, dont 
Pautorité est d'un grand poids, disent avoir trouvé la pomme de ferre 
dans les terrains cultivés, in cultis, et non dans les foréts et sur le dos des 
montagnes," page 400. The last paragraph, however, is at variance with 
the letter of Don José to Mr. Lambert, and more appears to be inferred 
from what Ruiz and Pavon say on the subject in-the Flora Peruviana, 
than those authors intended. The passage in that work, after the descrip- 
T" of the Solanum tuberosum, is as follows :—* Habitat in Peruvie €t 
Chilensis Regni cultis, et in collibus Chancay, ad Jequan et Pasamay? 
predia? If they had only found it in cultivated land, the first part of 
this passage would have been sufficient; but the context leaves it to be 
understood that that circumstance does not apply to its locality ” 
Chancay. 
-~ Chancay is a town on the coast of Peru, which gives its name to the 
surrounding district or jurisdiction, in which the estates of Jequan ant 
Pasamayo are situated, and it is doubtless the place alluded to in Don 
José’s letter, being about the distance he mentions north of Lima. There 
is a great extent of cultivated land in the neighbourhood, irrigated from 
the river of Pasamayo, (called also the river of Chancay,) but Ruiz and 
Pavon say, they found the plant in the hills, where, as I have before 
observed, there is no cultivation. As nothing, however, is stated of the 
nature of the hills, nor of the height at which the plant occurs above the 
valley, there is still room to suspect that it may have been accidentally 
a " re ‘the Indians formerly brought water upon the land 
