416 Foreign and Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



similar origin. If they occurred in the valley, this is more than 

 probable, as almost the whole of the land is either cultivated by irri- 

 gation, or the uncultivated spots are overflowed when the river is 

 swelled by the rains in the interior. I remember a curious instance 

 of this sort of vegetable colonization. In the vineyards of Chili, it 

 is customary, in order to economise the land, to sow lucerne among 

 the vines, to the great injury Jof the latter, as it prevents the ground 

 frorii being ploughed or hoed. An intelligent landowner, who had 

 travelled in France, and observed the beneficial effects of turning up 

 and manuring the land, determined to adopt the same system in a 

 large vineyard he was planting near Santiago, and gave orders 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 Polilique sur le Royaume de la 

 Nouvelle Espagne, he says, ' J'observe d'abord, pour ne consigner 

 ici que des faits exacts, que la pomme de terre n'est pas indigene au 

 Perou, et qu'elle ne se trouve pas nulle part sauvage dans la partie de 

 la Cordillere qui est situ^e sous les tropiques. Nous avons, M. 

 Bonpland et moi, herborise sur le dos et sur la pente des Andes, 

 depuis les 5 nord, jusqu'aux 12 sud; nous avons pris des informa- 

 tions chez des personnes qui ont examine cette chaine de montagnes 

 colossales jusqu'a La Paz et a Oruro, et nous sommes surs que 

 dans cette vaste etendue de terrein il ne ve'gete spontanement aucune 

 espece de Solande a racines nourrissantes/ ' MM. Ruiz et Pavon, 

 dont Tautorite est d'un grand poids, disent avoir trouve la pomme de 

 terre dans les terrains cultiv^s, in cultis, et non dans les forets et sur 

 le dos des montagnes,' page 400. The last paragraph, however, is 

 at variance with the letter of Don Jose 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 description of the Solanum tuberosum, is as 

 follows : ' Habitat in Peruviae et Chilensis regni cultis, et in collibus 

 Chancay, ad Jequan et Pasamayo p'rcedia! 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 circum- 

 stance does not apply to its locality at Cbancay. 



Chancay is a town on the coast of Peru, which gives its nanie to 

 the surrounding district or jurisdiction, in which the estates of Jequan 

 and Pasamayo are situated, and it is doubtless the place alluded to in 

 Don Jose's letter, being about the distance he mentions north of 

 Lima. There is a great extent of cultivated land in the neighbour- 



