158 WHAT MR. DARWIN SAW. 



CHILE. 



VALDIVIA. 



VALDIVIA is situated about ten miles from the coast, on 

 the low banks of a stream, and is so completely buried in a 

 wood of apple-trees that the streets are merely paths in an 

 orchard. I have never seen any country where apple-trees 

 appeared to thrive so well as in this damp part of South 

 America : on the borders of the roads there were many young 

 trees, evidently self-sown. In the island of Chiloe the in- 

 habitants have a marvellously short method of making an 

 orchard. At the lower part of almost every branch small 

 conical brown wrinkled points project ; these are always 

 ready to change into roots, as may sometimes be seen where 

 any mud has been accidentally splashed against the tree. A 

 branch as thick as a man's thigh is chosen in the early spring, 

 and is cut off just beneath a group of these points ; all the 

 smaller branches are lopped off, and it is then placed about 

 two feet deep in the ground. During the next summer the 

 stump throws out long shoots, and sometimes even bears 

 fruit. I was shown one which had produced as * many as 

 twenty-three apples, but this was thought very unusual. In 

 the third season the stump is changed (as I have myself seen) 

 into a well-wooded tree, loaded with fruit. An old man near 

 Valdivia gave us an account of the several useful things he 

 manufactured from his apples. After making cider, and like- 

 wise wine, he extracted from the leavings a white and finely- 

 flavored spirit ; by another process he procured a sweet trea- 

 cle, or, as he called it, honey. His children and pigs seemed 

 almost to live, during this season of the year, in his orchard. 



