CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTHWEST GUATEMALA—MCcBRYDE 27 
Lake Atitlan is near the upper limit of tomato culti- 
vation which averages about 1,800 m. (5,900 ft.). 
POTATOES 
The several types of potatoes, both “native” and 
“American,” are discussed in Appendix 2. Many 
fields in regions above about 1,900 to 2,000 m. 
(6,234 to 6.562 ft.) are planted to this tuber, and 
particularly those higher than 2,200 m. C218 i:),; 
preferably those having light soils. Manuring was 
reported at San Juan Ostuncalco, Almolonga, and 
elsewhere. The premium potato areas in the high 
Quezaltenango region are, besides Almolonga, Con- 
cepcidn Chiquirichapa (also nearby San Martin 
Sacatepequez, almost all inhabitants of which plant 
potatoes as well as maize), where pumice-nodular 
soil, recent ejecta from Santa Maria volcano, is 
widespread. Big white “American” varieties are 
planted here annually, in February and March, and 
are harvested in June. This is the season also at 
Almolonga. The little red criollo (“native”) variety 
goes in the ground usually in December and January 
and is dug in July and August. In several sections 
it was reported that little “native” potatoes (white 
and red) have a “perennial” habit; that they are 
harvested only in part, with many leit in the ground, 
and are not planted, but reappear annually in the 
field.84 They were said to have been planted much 
more a generation ago (1900-1910) than now. 
This primitive method argues for the antiquity 
of the potato in Guatemala. It was reported at San 
Cristébal Totonicapan and in the Momostenango 
area (cantons of Santa Ana, Tunayac, and to some 
degree in Buenabaj, according to Don Ernesto 
Lang). In the latter region there was said to be 
also some annual planting in April with yield in 5 
months. 
% Brigham, in 1887, wrote of his observations between Argueta and 
Totonicapan: ‘ . on the hill-sides were ancient potato-fields only 
cultivated by digging the tubers; and this process has gone on for 
years—the Indians digging at the bottom of the slope as potatoes are 
wanted, leaving enough for seed, and arriving at the top by the time 
the rains begin . . The indios declared the potatoes had never 
been planted, but their ancestors had dug them from remotest time.” 
(Brigham, 1887, pp. 136-137.) 
The Russians, their efforts trained upon the potato more than any 
other plant, derived great interest from this passage. Their finding of 
a potato at Quezaltenango which was “certainly not S. tuberosum, the 
common cultivated potato of Europe or the U. S. A., but belonged to 
another Andean cultivated variety S. andigenum Juz. et Buk.” was re- 
garded as possibly verifying Brigham’s suggestion that the potato near 
Argueta “was undoubtedly not the common cultivated potato.’”? (Buka- 
sov, 1930.) The Russian collection from Guatemala included also S. 
tuberosum; they seem to have overlooked the current practice of leav- 
ing the potatoes in the ground, though they described it as widespread 
in Colombia. ‘The cropping of the potato is in places very primitive 
7 The harvesting is done-yearly without planting again” (ibid., 
p. 198). 
OLD WORLD CROPS OF POST-CONQUEST 
INTRODUCTION 
HIGHLAND FIELD CROPS 
Wheat.—A 16th-century report (Médel, Ms., p. 
145, f. 192) states that the first wheat cultivated in 
the Western Hemisphere was brought from Spain 
and planted by a Negro in Mexico, whence it spread 
elsewhere in the New World. It was said to have 
been brought by a slave who had stored a few grains 
in his master’s coin box. 
The Vera Paz Relacién (Anon., Ms. 1574 b, p. 
4, f. 93), tells of repeated unsuccessful attempts at 
planting wheat in that region, where it grew only 
at San Cristébal and Tactic, was badly rotted by 
excessive moisture, would not make bread, and soon 
was given up. Ponce (1873, vol. 1, p. 392) saw 
wheat as early as 1586, and as far equatorward 
as southeast ‘Salvador (San Miguel volcano, lat. 
13°30" N:)< 
The wheat planted in Southwest Guatemala is 
summer wheat, being planted in May and early 
June after the beginning of the rains, and harvested 
in December and January, with sickles. In the 
Cuchumatanes Mountains, however, most wheat is 
planted in October and November, and harvested in 
June and July. The land is hoed much as it is for 
maize, but not so deeply—usually 6- or 8-inch (15- 
20 cm.) furrows, some 20 inches (51 cm.) apart. At 
intervals of about every 15 or 20 feet (4.6-6 m.) little 
earthern dikes are constructed across the bottom of 
each furrow. This was observed everywhere in 
Southwest Guatemala. It was assertedly (at Cajola) 
“to retain the water and to prevent gullying.”” The 
grain is sown by the handful, and covered with about 
an inch of dirt. Wheat is not manured, as that re- 
portedly tends to make it run to excessive leaf, with 
poor grain development. A Ladino on the Lake said 
he tried planting wheat on the fertile saddle between 
volcanoes Atitlan and Toliman, and that it grew 4 or 
5 feet (1.2-1.5 m.) high, with such a reduced grain 
yield as to make the harvest insignificant. 
Varietal names of wheats given at San Juan 
Ostuncalco are as follows: Colorado (commonest), 
White Italian (very little), and a large “foreign” 
wheat called trisco (planted in July and August, 
harvested in January) ; at San Francisco el Alto the 
criollo is a small, long-grained variety, in addition 
to which there is a diminutive, round type said to 
have been introduced from California about 1933. 
Colima wheat was said to be planted at Salcaja. 
