224 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 274. 



and bright with Howers, a truly pastoral region, great herds of 

 black cattle and flocks of long-legged sheep being herded 

 there, coming into the broad valley of Toluca, we settled 

 down beside the railroad station in the middle of August, and 

 worked there more or less constantly till the end of October, 

 when frosts had sered the vegetation of the valley. 



The beautiful, extensive and fertile Valley of Toluca is the 

 most elevated valley of much extent in all the republic. Its 

 altitude is about 8,500 feet, or nearly a thousand feet greater 

 than that of the Valley of Mexico, from which it is separated 

 by the Sierra de las Cruces. In its upper, or southern portion, 

 lie Lake Lerma and its marshes, the source of the River Ler- 

 ma, fed by mountain brooks, which tumble down from the 

 range just mentioned, lying on the east and from the great 

 volcano on the west. At the season of our visit the upper end 

 of this valley was covered solid with Corn ; and corn-fields 

 were crowding upon the city of Toluca, blocks of corn in the 

 suburbs alternating with blocks of buildings. During the 

 earher months of the year wheat occupies the same ground. 

 In this valley, so elevated, so watered by pure streams and 

 daily showers, summer heats and droughts are unknown, 

 there is unfailing verdure and an unfailing harvest. Nearly 

 every evening during August and September came a thunder- 

 storm, rolling over the Sierra de las Cruces from the direction 

 of Popocatapetl ; but the rest of the day was always sunny 

 and delightful. Before the middle of October, however, the 

 rains ceased ; and thereafter the entire day was bright and dry 

 and warm ; and all the days were alike. 



The trains of the Mexican National, which left Toluca in 

 the early morning, afforded us easy facilities for reaching 

 the prairies and river-valleys to the north of the Sierra de las 

 Cruces, twenty-five miles away to the east ; and, returning near 

 the close of day, they picked us up laden with the spoils of the 

 fields and set us down before the door of our hotel. 



The ride by these trains from the beautiful Valley of Toluca, 

 over the high Sierra de las Cruces and down into the wonder- 

 ful Valley of Mexico, can hardly be surpassed in interest in 

 any part of the world. Into the east we speed, as the sun is 

 mounting above the sierras, over level fields, over the shallow 

 waters of Lake Lerma, which are half-hidden from view by 

 reeds, grasses and flowering water-weeds, and are whitened 

 at times by the tall-stemmed flowers of a Water-lily, Nymphaea 

 gracilis. Two engines pant and tug to pull our train up the 

 mountain-heights. While ascending the first steep grade on 

 a hill-side, we look down on an Indian village which extends 

 beneath us, on its roofs of tiles or of pine rifts held down by 

 rocks. We look away over the lake and the fields which sur- 

 round it, to the great volcano, standing against the west. Soon 

 we come up to the white-walled hacienda of Jaljalapa, with its 

 chapel and its fiouring-mill, its flat bench of sandy tillage and 

 its dark pine groves. Then come bosky and watery glens, 

 spanned by bridges, then labyrinthine windings among and 

 around hills partly planted with the Maguey, partly wooded, 

 then grades laid above dark canons and overnung with 

 dark forests of fir, till finally through a wild, rocky gorge, 

 beside a noisy stream, we come out upon the Plain of 

 Salazar, a green mountain meadow spread out broad in 

 the lap of the summit knobs. Herds are seen feeding 

 upon this plain. And it is flanked by dense forests of the 

 Mexican fir, Abies religiosa, with tall trees three feet in diam- 

 eter, yielding hard and valuable lumber. 



Here we are on dark and bloody ground, the field of opera- 

 tions of brigands, when men traveled in saddle or by coach 

 between the capital and the cities of Toluca and Morelia. In 

 the mountain-walls standing around this meadow we have ex- 

 plored for Ferns, grottoes and deep fastnesses amid the rocks 

 admirably fitted for retreats for outlaws. But now, since the 

 railroad has come this way, the carriage-road has reverted to 

 a trail with water-gullies and broken bridges, along which goes 

 a stream of Indians on foot, men, women and children, with 

 their ponies and donkeys, all alike beasts of burden, stooping 

 under heavy loads. This ground has been stained by war 

 also. Less than a mile south of the Cumbre, the highest point 

 of the railroad, a granite monument, standing on a broad 

 boulder, marks the site of a battle-field, the place where, on 

 the 30th of October, 1810, the patriot Hidalgo won a victory 

 over the army of the Spanish Viceroy, and then, when the 

 capital lay at his mercy, not twenty miles distant, wandered 

 away to remote cities till overtaken and slain. On that alpine 

 battle-field I have found new species of plants, and have 

 drank at the ice-coJl,(l springs— there are a hundred of them 

 issuingfrom the grassy slopes and hill-sides— which slaked the 

 thirst of the fighting hosts on that October day. 



At Cumbre siding the extra engine is released, the train- 

 brakes are examined with care and tested, and then we start 



down the long, steep and sinuous grades. The terraced hill- 

 sides, with Maguey-fields and garden-plats, the villages and the 

 Indian cabins claim our attention. We glide over glens on the 

 loftiest and slenderest of iron bridges, and we thread a long 

 and tortuous caRon, passing from bank to bank of a swift 

 stream hugging steep bluffs, till we emerge into the open val- 

 ley at Rio Honda Station. Villages, plantations and meadows 

 are passed in swift succession, and we enter the great city. 

 From the summit of one of the foot-hills just passed by us I 

 looked off" into the east one evening, as the sun was setfing, 

 upon one of the fairest and grandest scenes which the world 

 can offer. At my feet lay fields covered with luxuriant vege- 

 tation and dotted with picturesque villages. In the midst of 

 the valley spread the Mexican capital, with its hundreds of 

 towers and domes. Beyond the city gleamed the lakes, and 

 in the far background the vast mountains stood against the 

 sky, their summits crowned with peaks white with eternal 

 snows. 



Twenty miles to the south-west of Toluca stands the volcano, 

 or Nevado, of Toluca. This mountain ranks fourth in point of 

 altitude within the republic, its loftiest pinnacle being about 

 15,000 feet above the sea. Since it rises by easy slopes and 

 terminates in a vast bowl of a crater, its figure is a truncated 

 cone much depressed. The rim of the crater is ragged, show- 

 ing several prominent peaks. Far-reaching buttresses flank 

 the mountain on the north-east, south-east and west. Its 

 southern slope falls away rapidly to the hot lowlands. Its mid- 

 dle slopes are covered with evergreen forests. Above the 

 timber-line grassy slopes extend up to the rim of the crater. 

 On certain mornings, or for two or three days at a time during 

 the rainy season, these bare slopes appearwhitened with snow. 

 When the daily storms take other directions, and the sun shines 

 unobstructed by clouds, the snows disappear for a time. So 

 much had I known of Toluca during three years. At length 

 the time came to gratify my desire for an intimate acquaint- 

 ance. 



Having been informed of the superstiiions of the Indians 

 living about the mountain — that sacrifices to the sun-god were 

 once made within the crater, and that offerings of food for the 

 spirits of the dead are carried up the mountain to this day — 

 and of their jealousy of strangers, perhaps on account of mines 

 and of the treasure of robbers known to be hidden there, I had 

 recourse to my official letters, and first armed myself with a 

 paper from the Governor of the state. ^ 



Charlotte, Vt. C. Cr. PriHgle. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Bromelia fastuosa. 



THIS is a handsome and useful Bromeliad for cultiva- 

 tion in large stoves. It grows to a large size, form- 

 ing a rosette of from sixty to one hundred leaves, which are 

 five feet long, rigid, arching, channeled, armed with stout 

 hooked marginal spines and colored bright green. Its in- 

 florescence is an erect terminal panicle about one and a 

 half feet high, clothed at the base with numerous bright 

 scarlet leaves a foot long, the upper part crowded with 

 woolly bracts and flowers, in which the reddish violet- 

 colored petals are most conspicuous. Two large plants flow- 

 ered in July, last year, in one of the stoves at Kew, when they 

 were much admired. They afterward fruited, and the ac- 

 companying picture (page 225) is from a photograph of one 

 of them made in February, this year. The fruits are about 

 the size of bantams' eggs, and they are colored bright 

 lemon-yellow. They are very ornamental, the plant figured 

 having been attractive all winter, and it is still very 

 fine. 



There are six species of Bromelia, all of them very much 

 alike in stature and foliage. The one here illustrated was de- 

 scribed and well figured by Lindleyin his Collectanea Botanica 

 in 1821 from a plant flowered in England. It is a native of 

 Brazil, and is now not uncommon in cultivation. If treated 

 well it grows very freely, and reproduces itself by means of 

 basal suckers. It likes a stove temperature, plenty of 

 moisture and a rich soil. 



Bromelia argentina is a new species described by Mr. 

 Baker in the A'ezfci Bulletin, 1892, p. 193. It is the source of 

 Caraguata fibre, well known to travelers and others as an ex- 

 cellent material for textile purposes, but the plant from which 

 it was obtained was not known until last year, when speci- 



