COCHINEAL PLANTATION. 129 



neal, which is of inferior value. The true cochineal 

 insect, and the cactus on which it feeds, are said to 

 have been of late years successfully introduced 

 into Spain and the French colony of Algiers, and 

 now exist in the stores of the Jardin des Plantes 

 at Paris, and also in those of King Leopold at 

 Claremont. 



Stephens, in his Travels in Central America, 

 does not omit to notice the cultivation of this 

 insect, which was carried on extensively in the 

 neighbourhood of the ruined city of La Antigua 

 Guatimala. " Emerging from the city," he says, 

 " we entered the open plain, shut in by mountains, 

 and cultivated to their base with cochineal. At 

 about a mile's distance we turned into the hacienda 

 of Senor Vidaury. In the yard were four oxen 

 grinding sugar-cane, and behind was his nopal or 

 cochineal plantation, one of the largest in the An- 

 tigua. The plant is a species of cactus, set out in 

 rows like Indian corn, and, at the time I speak of, 

 it was about four feet high. On every leaf was 

 pinned with a thorn a piece of cane, in the hollow 

 of which were thirty or forty insects. These 

 K 



