146 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



ing ; I have seen the harvest gathering ; I have seen the way in 

 which it is stored ; and I propose to say something to you of 

 that and of other branches of tropical agriculture. 



One word, in tlie first place, on the country itself, for if it was 

 a dangerous land to visit, if it was so sickly that to travel there 

 would be the death of a man from the North, it would be hardly 

 desirable that such a land should be thrown open to free inter- 

 course with all nations. But there never was a country which 

 had a bad repute which deserved it less. The idea generally 

 is, that the valley of the Amazon is a malarious land, pestilen- 

 tial, almost intolerable on account of the insects and poisonous 

 reptiles, and dangerous on account of the wild population. It 

 is not so. Though under the equator, the valley of the 

 Amazon stretches, parallel to the equator, extending a few 

 degrees to the north and a few degrees to the south of the 

 equator, but mainly under the equator — from the foot of the 

 Andes to the Atlantic Ocean, in a straight line of over two 

 thousand miles, and over a width varying from five hundred to 

 seven hundred miles. We should expect, under such circum- 

 stances, an exceedingly hot climate. Let me say, that the 

 climate is more temperate than New England. There are no 

 winters such as we have ; I saw no such hot days as we have. 

 Our New England climate is what the natural philosophers call 

 " an excessive climate ; " that is, a climate in which the tem- 

 perature of winter sinks as low as anywhere, and in which the 

 summer heat rises as high as anywhere ; the consequence of 

 which is, an average temperature which passes for temperate, 

 because the extremes are so far apart that when combined, the 

 result is a moderate average. On the Amazon, it is very differ- 

 ent. The highest tsmperature experienced there is 90° or 91° 

 Fahrenheit. I have been told that the thermometer has shown 

 91° only once in ten years. I have observed the thermometer 

 myself daily during eight months, and I never saw it rise to 90°. 

 It never falls below 77° or 78°. You see the range is very 

 small. You would therefore expect that the temperature 

 would be very uniform, very monotonous. But there is another 

 circumstance which modifies that in a remarkable degree. The 

 Amazon, emptying into the Atlantic under the equator, faces 

 the trade-winds. The trade-winds blow over the Atlantic for 

 its whole width, and sweep over the valley of the Amazon, from 



