44 



parts of the country ; but as the people who in- 

 habit these rich valleys are Nomades, or herds- 

 men, and in reality cultivate nothing, it is diffi- 

 cult to determine with precision the degree of 

 their fertility. The various salts and other prin- 

 ciples of fecundity contained in these mountains, 

 and by means of the air and the rivers distributed 

 throughout the country, combining with the 

 natural heat of the soil, may be considered as 

 the real causes of that inexhaustible fertility 

 which requires not the aid of manure. The 

 husbandmen have discovered by experience that 

 all artificial manures are superfluous, if not inju- 

 rious ; they allege in proof the great fertility of 

 the land in the vicinity of St. Jago, which, not- 

 withstanding it has never been manured since the 

 settlement of the Spaniards, a period of two hun- 

 dred and thirty-nine years, though constantly 

 cultivated by them, and for an unknown time by 

 the Indians before them, has lost nothing of its 

 productive properties. 



Another advantage resulting from the richness 

 of the soil is, that Chili is not infestedwith those 

 worms so destructive to grain in the blade, which 

 are produced or multiplied by the fermentation 

 and putrefaction of manure. 



Those who have written upon Chili are not 

 agreed as to the product of the soil. Some say 

 that it yields from sixty to eighty, and even a 



