53/6 MINES FAVOURABLE TO CULTURE. 
are nourished by the soil, and that they are inde- 
pendent of foreign commerce. Yet agriculture is 
by no means so flourishing as might be expected 
from its natural resources, although considerable 
improvement has been effected of late years. The 
depressed state of cultivation, it is true, has been 
attributed to the existence of numerous rich mines ; 
but Humboldt, on the contrary, maintains that the 
working of these ores has been beneficial in causing 
many places to be improved which would other- 
wise have remained steril. When a vein is opened 
on the barren ridge of the cordilleras, the new co- 
lonists can only draw the means of subsistence from 
a great distance. Want soon excites to industry, and 
farms begin to be established in the neighbourhood. 
The high price of provisions indemnifies the cultiva- 
tor for the hard life to which he is exposed, and the 
ravines and valleys become gradually covered with 
food. When the mineral treasures are exhausted, 
the workmen no doubt emigrate, so that the popu- 
lation is diminished ; but the settlers are retained 
by their attachment to the spot in which they have 
passed their childhood. The Indians, moreover, pre- 
fer living in the solitudes of the mountains remote 
from the whites, and this circumstance tends to in- 
crease the number of inhabitants in such districts. 
In describing the vegetable productions of New 
Spain, our author begins with those which form the 
principal support of the people, then treats of the class 
which affords materials for manufacture, and ends 
with such as constitute objects of commerce. 
The banana (Musa paradisiaca) is to the in- 
habitants of the torrid zone what the cereal grasses, 
—wheat, barley, and rye,—are to Western Asia and 
