215 

 at that time old and new gardens would have a similar appearance and would be hard to differentiate 

 without resorting to complex laboratory analyses. 



Distance from X-Hazil Sur . In the Yucatan Peninsula, most Maya live in small rural villages and 

 plant their gardens in forests on the outskirts of the village (Villa Rojas, 1987). As villages have 

 increased in size, however, the amount of unoccupied land near settlements and available for 

 horticulture has decreased. As a result, Maya gardeners have had to clear gardens at increasingly 

 greater distances from the village. 



The distance that a gardener must travel to reach the field site is important because of the high 

 frequency of visits he must make to manage the garden. In addition, the gardener must transport his 

 crops from the garden to his home. Gardeners today usually walk or ride a bicycle on their almost- 

 daily visits to the field, but as recently as the 1960s gardeners at X-Hazil Sur used horses and mules to 

 meet their daily transportation needs (A. Foot Yam, pers. comm.). Few Maya gardeners have access 

 to trucks for daily use. Under optimal conditions, a gardener on bicycle following a dirt trail through 

 the forest might take 20-30 min to cover 3 km, but travel time can increase substantially when it is 

 muddy or a load must be carried. Thus, it is highly advantageous for a gardener to minimize the 

 distance to the field. 



At X-Hazil Sur, the majority of gardens were near the village, but gardens also were distributed 

 in other areas of the ejido, except in the permanent forest reserve east of Mexico Highway 307. While 

 the average garden distances at X-Hazil Sur were 4.0 km in 1989 and 3.8 km in 1990, about 50% of 

 the gardens were at 1.0-2.9 km from the village, but gardeners also planted fields up to 16.6 km away. 

 Perhaps the main reason for this widespread distribution of gardens is that the ejido is well-supplied 

 with roads and trails that greatly facilitate access to garden sites (Figure 2-5). For example, Mexican 

 Highway 307 crosses the ejido from north to south and the Pemex roads promote travel in the southern 

 part of the area. As can be observed from Figure 2-5, the vast majority of gardens are within 2 km of 

 these roads. These roads and trails greatly ease the work associated with reaching the gardens. 



