250 Notes, horticultural and agricultural, 



flowers, are so rare in the above countries, a Brazilian market- 

 place exhibits a profusion of products, beautiful in themselves ; 

 but especially unusual and surprising to the European traveller. 

 Heaps of jacka (Artocarpus integrifolia), some of them as big 

 as a pumpkin, with their rough reticulated skins ; several kinds of 

 custard apples, some of which, like Frutla di Conde, are of a very- 

 delicious taste ; several kinds of Eugem'tf, and, among others, the 

 pitanga, with its terebinthine flavour; and mangoes, are a few 

 of the most striking and extraordinary. And, if we take into con- 

 sideration, that all these are mixed up with heaps of pine-apples, 

 twelve to fifteen sorts of oranges, lemons, and limes, together with 

 sweet potatoes (Ipomce x a Batatas), bananas, common and water 

 melons, and grapes, besides rose apples (Eugenm Jambos), 

 the massive brown tubers of yams (Dioscorea), mandiocca, 

 A'rachis hypogasa, cocoa nuts, and five or six other fruits of 

 palms; and the vanille, the cacao (Theobroma), cuttings of 

 sugar-cane, coffee, &c. ; if we take all this into consideration, 

 we mio[ht almost believe that the tradition of the gardens of the 

 Hesperides was not purely an invention of the fancy, but based 

 on solid reality. 



But as it was not the intention of Providence, that nature 

 should produce, and man enjoy, every thing in every place, the 

 climate of the tropical part of the Brazils, and especially Bahia, 

 is not adapted for growing the northern vegetables. In Bahia 

 scarcely anything but radishes and lettuces, a few small carrots, 

 and parsley, will succeed; and it is only in the latitude of Rio 

 Janeiro that the roots of the carrots attain any considerable 

 size. Potatoes never grow in Bahia, and even near Rio they 

 are wretchedly bad. In the valleys of the Organ Mountains 

 (4000 ft. above the level of the sea), Mr. G. Marsh of Liver- 

 pool has begun an English farming establishment; and at that 

 height (the mean temperature of which may be about that of 

 northern Italy), the northern culinary plants, even cauliflowers, 

 are grown to great perfection, and sell at Rio for very high prices. 

 In these valleys a number of English have established them- 

 selves ; some of whom have obtained several square miles of 

 land from the Brazilian government gratuitously, upon which 

 they follow all sorts of rural pursuits. As the potato, notwith- 

 standing the difficulty of procuring it, has remained a favourite 

 dish with the million of white people in the Brazils, the few 

 raised among the Organ Mountains are quite insufficient to 

 satisfy so great a demand ; and it will be new, perhaps, for some 

 of my readers, to learn that large quantities of English and 

 Irish potatoes are yearly imported into the harbours of the Bra- 

 zils. These potatoes being conveyed in wicker baskets, through 

 which the air can circulate freely, arrive in Brazil in a state of 

 perfect preservation ; and they are afterwards spread by the 

 means of mules, or other conveyances, over the whole territory. 



