218 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



leros. They plant their nopaleries in cleared ground on the slopes of 

 mountains or ravines two or three leagues distant from their villages ; and 

 when properly cleaned, the plants are in a condition to maintain the cochi- 

 neal in the third year. As a stock, the proprietor in April or May pur- 

 chases branches or joints of the Tuna de Castilla, laden with small cochi- 

 neal insects recently hatched (^Semilla). These branches, which may be 

 bought in the market of Oaxaca for about three francs (2s. 6d.) the 

 hundred, are kept for twenty days in the interior of their huts, and then 

 exposed to the open air under a shed, where, from their succulency, they 

 continue to live for several months. In August and September the mother 

 cochineal insects, now big with young, are placed in nests made of a 

 species of Tillandsia c?i\\ed Paxtle, which are distributed upon the nopals. 

 In about four months, the first gathering, yielding twelve for one, may be 

 made, which in the course of the year is succeeded by two more profitable 

 harvests. This period of sowing and harvest refers chiefly to the districts 

 of Sola and Zimatlan. In colder climates the semilla is not placed upon 

 the nopals until October or even December, when it is necessary to shelter 

 the young insects by covering the nopals with rush mats, and the harvests 

 are proportionably later and unproductive. In the immediate vicinity of 

 the town of Oaxaca the Nopaleros feed their cochineal insects in the 

 plains from October to April, and at the beginning of the remaining 

 months, during which it rains in the plains, transport them to their planta- 

 tions of nopals in the neighboring mountains, where the weather is more 

 favorable. 



Much care is necessary in the tedious operation of gathering the cochi- 

 neal from the nopals, which is performed with a squirrel or stag's tail by 

 the Indian women, who for this purpose squat down for hours together 

 beside one plant ; and notwithstanding the high price of the cochineal, it 

 is to be doubted if the cultivation would be profitable were the value of 

 labor more considerable. 



The cochineal insects are killed either by throwing them into boiling 

 water, by exposing them in heaps to the sun, or by placing them in the 

 ovens (Temazealli) used for vapor baths. The last of these methods, 

 which is least in use, preserves the whitish powder on the body of the 

 cochineal, which, being thus less subject to the adulterations so often 

 practised by the Indians, bears a higher price both in America and 

 Europe.^ 



The quantity annually exported from South America was said by Hum- 

 boldt to be at the time he wrote 32,000 arrobas, there worth 500,040/. 

 sterling^ ; — a vast amount to arise from so small an insect, and well cal- 

 culated to show us the absurdity of despising any animals on account of 

 their minuteness. So important was the acquisition of this insect regarded, 

 that the Court of Directors of the East India Company formerly offered a 

 reward of 6000?. to any one who should introduce it into India, where 

 hitherto the Company had only succeeded in procuring from Brazil the 

 wild kind producing the syhestre cochineal, which is of very inferior 

 value. The true cochineal insect and the Cactus on which it feeds are 



» Humboldt's Political Essay on New Spain, iii. 72 — 79. 



2 Ibid. iii. 64. — Dr. Bancroft estimated the annual consumption of cochineal in Great 

 Britain at about 750 bags, or 150,000 lbs. ; worth 375,000^. 



