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, " J'observe d'abord pour ne consigner ici que des faits exacts, que 

 l&pomme de terre n'est pas indigene au Perou, et qu'elle ne se trouve pas 

 nuUe part sauvage dans la partie de la Cordillere qui est situee 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 informations chez des personnes qui out examine cette chaine de 

 Montagues colossales j usqu'a La Paz et a Oruro, et nous sommes surs que 

 dans cette vaste etendue de terrain il ne vegete spontanement aucune 

 espece de Solanee a racines nourissantes." — " M. M. Ruiz et Pavon, dont 

 I'autorite est d'un grand poids, disent avoir trouve la pomme de terre 

 dans les ten-ains cultive'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 descrip- 

 tion of the Solanum tuberosum, is as follows : — " Habitat in Peruvise et 

 Chilensis Regni cultis, et in collibus Chancay, ad Jequan et Pasamayo 

 prcedia." If they had only found it in cultivated land, the fii-st 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 at 

 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 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 neighbourhood, irrigated from 

 the river of Pasamayo, (called also the river of Chancay,) but Ruiz and 

 Pavon say, they foimd 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 

 introduced, and, indeed, the Indians formerly brought water upon the land 

 from a considerable distance, at a much greater elevation than any that is 

 irrigated at the present day. 



