1 6 MEXICAN RESOURCES. 



composition maintain its fertilit)'. In many districts less favored by nature, the soil 

 is lightly manured by flocks of sheep and goats. The manure from the stables of 

 horses and mules is heaped up in the yard as rubbish, and in autumn burnt. Only 

 horses and mules, such as are required for immediate use, are kept in stables, while 

 horned cattle never have shelter. Their forage is almost always dry chopped straw, 

 mixed with maize or barley, while the oxen sometimes get maize straw, and in the 

 rainy season green fodder, besides the grass of the pasture, which is insufficient 

 during the working season. With rare exceptions, oxen are used for ploughing ; 

 large estates often require two hundred yoke or more. The plow is still the 

 ancient Roman one used in Spain, which merely furrows the soil, instead of turning 

 it up. The harrow is not much used, a thorn-bush replacing it. 



It is only during the maize harvest that the Indian women are actively employed 

 in the field, it being considered more as a holiday, as all wish to be in at the viiida 

 (the widow), the last ear that comes from the field. A tall stalk with the finest fruit 

 is selected, ornamented with ribbons and plumes, and conveyed in triumphant pro- 

 cession to the master's house, as an indication of the harvest being completed. A 

 dance, or at least some bottles of brandy, reward the attention of the servants. On 

 all the haciendas the woik is performed by day laborers, who live on the estate, and 

 serve voluntarily. They are not boarded, but receive their pay in money, and usu- 

 ally every week a ration of maize and pulse. Should they be hindered from work- 

 ing by sickness, or if the master makes special advances for weddings, christenings, 

 or burials, they are forced to incur debt, and are naturally obliged to work it off. 

 The wages on the plateaux, about two reales, or twenty-five cents, are doubled and 

 trebled on the coast. During harvest-time laborers are procured from the Indian 

 villages, who come for a week or fortnight, with their provisions and tools, and are 

 usually conducted by a capitan, appointed by the village alcade. These people are 

 willing, moderate, and enduring, but are only to be obtained when they have finished 

 harvesting in their own little plantations. The land belonging to most of the haci- 

 endas is too extensive for the proprietor to cultivate even ihe fourth part of it. He 

 therefore devotes the remainder of it to cattle-breeding, or lets it out to farmers. 



IN THE TIERRA CALIENTE, OR HOT COAST REGION. 



"Agriculture on the table-lands," says the observant writer last quoted, and whom 

 we shall follow a little farther, "has its prescribed limits, according to the soil and 

 the climate. The European may easily fancy himself in his own country; the corn- 

 fields, the meadows, and market gardens, even the orchards, are those of temperate 

 zones. On crossing the mountain ridges which encircle the plateaux, be it to the 

 east or west, the whole physiognomy of the country assumes a decided tropical 

 appearance ; the heights are wooded ; instead of the fine short Alpine grass, the 

 plains are covered with taller grasses; the ground is overshadowed with creeping 

 plants and brushwood; and agriculture obtains produce of a very different kind. 

 The estates of the east coast differ from those of the west coast. In the latter 

 all the perennial plants require artificial irrigation, whilst the coast lands of the Gulf, 

 near the mountains, have rain throughout the year. Maize, //"{/^/d-j, tobacco, rice, 

 cotton, and indigo are cultivated as summer plants, that is to say, at the commence- 

 ment of the rainy season, and require no further irrigation ; the sugar-cane, coffee, 

 cocoa, vanilla, rice, manioc, and the banana, must have irrigable land on the west 

 side ; on the east side in a few places only. 



