FARMING IN THE MONTANA. 



83 



country practised on this farm, will give an idea of the general system 

 of farming in the Montana. 



Zapatero has about one hundred acres cleared, and most of it planted 

 in cane, coca, yucca, pine-apples, plantains, coffee, and cotton. The farm 

 employs a mayordomo, or steward, and four resident laborers. These 

 are serfs, and cost the employer their support and seven dollars a year 

 each for their contribution to the government, or poll tax. When more 

 land is to be cleared, or the coca crop gathered, laborers are hired from 

 the neighboring villages of Tarma, Ocsabamba, or Palca, at nominal 

 wages of half a dollar a day; but their support is charged to them, 

 at such prices as to swallow up nearly all the wages. A sheep, for ex- 

 ample, is charged to them at three dollars : its price in Tarma is one ; 

 yucca at thirty-seven and a half cents the arroba, of twenty -five pounds ; 

 potatoes at fifty cents; maize at sixty-two and a half cents. This is the 

 maize of the hacienda; if it is supplied from the Sierra it is one dollar 

 and fifty cents. The laborers who live on the estate seem contented 

 with their lot; they dwell in small, filthy cane houses, with their wives 

 and children ; do very little work, and eat chalona, (or dried mutton,) 

 ckarqui, (or jerked beef,) yucca, cancha, sweet potatoes, and beans; and 

 drink " huarapo" (the fermented juice of the cane,) and sometimes a 

 glass of bad rum made from it. They occasionally desert ; but if they 

 do this, they must get some distance off, or custom, if not law, would 

 return them as debtors to their masters. 



Sugar-cane is propagated, not from seed but from the top joints of the 

 old plant, and is planted at the commencement of the rainy season in 

 September. It is ready for cutting in a year ; it yields again every ten 

 months, improving in quality and size every crop for a number of years, 

 according to the quality of the land and the care bestowed upon it. It 

 will continue to spring up from the roots for fifty or sixty years, with 

 one or two light workings with hoes in the year. The field is set fire 

 to after every cutting, to burn up the rubbage, weeds, &c. The average 

 height of the cane is about ten feet, though I have seen a stalk of six- 

 teen feet. 



Two men to cut and two to carry, will supply a mill called " Tra- 

 piche" which consists of three upright wooden rollers, in a rude wooden 

 frame. These rollers are cogged and placed close to each other. The 

 head of the middle one extends above the frame, and is squared, so as 

 to allow the shipping on it of a long beam, to the end of which an ox 

 is harnessed, which, walking in a circle, gives motion to the rollers. 

 The end of the cane is placed between the rollers, and is drawn in and 

 crushed by them; a wooden trough is placed below, to catch the juice. 



