XIV VALDIVIA 319 



orchard. I have never seen any country, where apple-trees 

 appeared to thrive so well as in this damp part of South 

 America : on the borders of the roads there were many young 

 trees evidently self-sown. In Chiloe the inhabitants possess a 

 marvellously short method of making an orchard. At the 

 lower part of almost every branch, small, conical, brown, 

 wrinkled points project : these are always ready to change into 

 roots, as may sometimes be seen, where any mud has been 

 accidentally splashed against the tree. A branch as thick as a 

 man's thigh is chosen in the early spring, and is cut off just 

 beneath a group of these points ; all the smaller branches are 

 lopped off, and it is then placed about two feet deep in the 

 ground. During the ensuing summer the stump throws out 

 long shoots, and sometimes even bears fruit : I was shown one 

 which had produced as many as twenty-three apples, but this 

 was thought very unusual. In the third season the stump is 

 changed (as I have myself seen) into a well-wooded tree, loaded 

 with fruit. An old man near Valdivia illustrated his motto, 

 " Necesidad es la madre del invencion," by giving an account 

 of the several useful things he manufactured from his apples. 

 After making cider, and likewise wine, he extracted from the 

 refuse a white and finely flavoured spirit ; by another process 

 he procured a sweet treacle, or, as he called it, honey. His 

 children and pigs seemed almost to live, during this season of 

 the year, in his orchard. 



February i \th. — I set out with a guide on a short ride, in 

 which, however, I managed to see singularly little either of 

 the geology of the country or of its inhabitants. There is not 

 much cleared land near Valdivia : after crossing a river at the 

 distance of a i^w miles, we entered the forest, and then passed 

 only one miserable hovel, before reaching our sleeping -place 

 for the night. The short difference in latitude, of 150 miles, 

 has given a new aspect to the forest, compared with that of 

 Chiloe. This is owing to a slightly different proportion in the 

 kinds of trees. The evergreens do not appear to be quite so 

 numerous ; and the forest in consequence has a brighter tint. 

 As in Chiloe, the lower parts are matted together by canes : 

 here also another kind (resembling the bamboo of Brazil and 

 about twenty feet in height) grows in clusters, and ornaments 

 the banks of some of the streams in a very pretty manner. It 



