April 1, 1865.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



NORTHERN PERU. 411 



carpet of grasses, of many different species, over which were scattered abun- 

 dance of gay flowering plants. Something similar must have occurred 

 this year to northward of the hills of Mancora, for people who have 

 travelled between Amotape and Tumbez in the middle of April re- 

 ported the whole country clad with verdure, and the grass in the hollows 

 up to horses' girths. 



Agi (culture, especially as applied to Cotton-growing. — Several kinds of 

 fruit-bearing trees are cultivated on the Chira, and none of them appear 

 to have been indigenous there. The principal are cocos, dates, mangos, 

 oranges, limes, lemons, pomegranates, two sorts of guayaba (Psi'dii sp.), 

 guavas (Inga sp.),"paltas" or alligator pears, civuelos (Spondias purpurea), 

 papayas, and tamarinds. These all bring forth fruit abundantly, yet not 

 in sufficient quantity to supply the consumption of the towns of Payta 

 and Piura, which obtain most of their oranges, mangos, and pine-apples 

 from Guayaquil and from the foot of the Cordillera. From the warm or 

 temperate valleys towards Loja and Ayabaca, at from 3,000 to 5,000 feet 

 elevation, are brought great store of delicious cherimoyas ; unfortunately, 

 when they are ripe (in June and July) the weather is at its coldest in 

 Piura, so that their cooling properties are not so appreciable there as at 

 Guayaquil, whither also they are exported in vast quantities. 



Plantains, maize, yucas of two kinds, sweet potatoes, achira (a sort of 

 Cauna, the fecula of whose tubers is what is called tapioca in Peru and 

 Ecuador), and many other edible plants of the tropics, are cultivated on 

 the Chira; but the wonder is to see many plants, usually considered 

 peculiar to cool climates, thrive and mature their peculiar products in 

 that warm valley. Potatoes grow and yield well, especially a kidney 

 potato of which I have seen tubers ten or eleven inches long. Carrots 

 form large roots, perfectly good tasted, and re-sow themselves all along 

 the vega. Eadishes, salsafy, onions, cucumbers, &c, thrive as well as in 

 Europe. Cauliflowers are magnificent, and even cabbages can sometimes 

 be induced to form a head. Now all these plants in a moist rainy region, 

 where the heat was as great as on the Chira, would probably either not 

 grow at all or would run all to leaf ; but growing on the vega or else- 

 where in the valley where by means of irrigation just so much moisture 

 as they need and no more can be supplied to them, and where they run 

 no risk of being drenched or beaten down to the earth by the rains usual 

 to other parts of the tropics, the great heat of the summer months seems 

 merely to act on them as a beneficial stimulant, and to accelerate their 

 ripening. The cultivation of these plants, however, is in the hands of 

 Europeans and North Americans, for simple as it is, it requires a little 

 more management than it would get from the natives, whose agriculture 

 may be said to be limited to two operations, sowing and gathering in the 

 crops. 



For growing maize in the valleys of Chira and Piura, so soon as the 

 inundations subside, they open with rude spades, called lampas, square 

 or round holes, a yard or so apart, about a foot across and as much deep. 



