234 



COCA-CULTIVATION. 



CuAP. XIV. 



seventy ordenanzas on this subject alone, between the years 

 1570 and 1574. Coca has always been one of the most 

 valuable articles of commerce in Peru, and it is used by 

 about 8,000,000 of the human race. 



The coca-plant {Erythoxylon coccif is cultivated between 

 5000 and 6000 feet above the level of the sea, in the warm 

 valleys of the eastern slopes of the Andes, where almost the 

 only variation of climate is from wet to dry, where frost is 

 unknown, and where it rains more or less every month in the 

 year. It is a shrub from four to six feet high, with lichens, 

 called lacco in Quichua, usually growing on the older trunks. 

 The branches are straight and alternate ; leaves alternate 

 and entire, in form and size like tea-leaves ; flowers solitary 

 with a small yellowish-white corolla in five petals, ten fila- 

 ments the length of the corolla, anthers heart-shaped, and 

 three pistils. 



Sowing is commenced in December and January, when the 

 rains begin, which continue until April. The seeds are spread 

 on the surface of the soil in a small nursery or raising-ground 

 called almaciga, over which there is generally a thatch roof 

 (huasichi). At the end of about a fortnight they come up ; 

 tlie young plants being continually watered, and protected 

 fi'om the sun by the huasichi. The following year they are 

 transplanted to a soil specially prepared by thorough weeding, 

 and breaking up the clods very fine by hand ; often in ter- 

 races only affording room for a single row of plants, up the 

 sides of the mountains, which are kept up by small stone walls. 

 The plants are generally placed in square holes called aspi, 

 a foot deep, with stones on the sides to prevent the earth 

 from falling in. Three or four are planted in each hole, and 



^ J. cle Jussieu was the first botanist 

 who sent specunens of coca to Europe, 

 iu 1750. 



Dr. Wedik'U suggests that the word 

 comes from the Aymara khoka, a tree, 



i. 6. the tree par excellence, hke yerha, 

 the plant of Paraguay. The Inca 

 liistoriau Garcilasso, however, sjaells 

 tlic word cuca. 



