98 FLOWERS AND GARDENS OF MADEIRA 



to support possibly only a few square yards of the 

 levelled ground, will grow a scanty crop of some 

 article of food. Thus bit by bit the cultivation 

 has crept up the hills, and has done much to mar 

 the beauty of the island. The peasants are very 

 primitive in their modes of cultivation, and as long 

 as the ground receives occasional irrigation during 

 the hot, dry months, and the surface is roughly 

 broken with their native hoe, it is all they consider 

 necessary, and are strongly averse to every kind of 

 innovation. It is small wonder that even in such a 

 climate the crop suffers ; the earth becomes im- 

 poverished and the vegetables produced are of a most 

 inferior quality. Their principal root crops are the 

 ordinary potato ; the sweet potato (Batata edulis), a 

 plant of the convolvulus family ; and the inhame, 

 a kind of yam. The sweet potato is one of their 

 staple articles of food, and the native appears to 

 consume an inordinately large quantity of batatas. 

 The tuberous roots yield three or even four crops 

 annually. In situations where the ground can be 

 kept constantly so supplied with moisture as to 

 be in a swampy condition, the inhame (Colocaria 

 antiquorum) is grown even up to a very high eleva- 

 tion, some 2,500 feet. It is quite different to the 

 West Indian yam, and belongs to the arum family ; 



