88 



FARMING IN THE MONTANA. 



Such a mill will yield fifteen hundred pounds of caldo or juice in a day. 

 These fifteen hundred pounds will give from two hundred and fifty to 

 three hundred pounds of sugar, which is worth in Tarma twelve and 

 a half cents the pound. 



Sugar-cane is the most valuable and useful product of the Montana. 

 The leaves of the cane, when green, serve for food for the cattle ; when 

 dry, to make wrappings for the chancaca and sugar. The crushed stalk 

 is used as fuel for the oven. The hogs fatten on the foam at the top of 

 the boiling. From the first boiling is made the chancaca or brown 

 sugar cake, which is eaten after dinner by almost all classes, and in 

 great quantities by the lower class ; it is worth six and a quarter cents 

 the pound in Tarma. From one thousand pounds of the caldo boiled 

 ten hours, is made four hundred pounds of chancaca. Very little sugar 

 is yet made in the Montana of Chanchamayo; indeed, I did not see a 

 nearer approach to it than chancaca in all the route. 



Coca is a bush of about four feet high, producing a small light-green 

 leaf, which is the part used. The blossom is white, and the fruit a 

 small red berry. The seed is sown in beds at the end of the rainy 

 season — about the first of March. The earth should be well broken up 

 and cleaned. Arbors of palm leaves are frequently built over the 

 young shoots to protect them from the sun, and they are watered, if it 

 continues clear, for five or six days. It is transplanted in September, 

 a year and a half after planting, and gives its first crop in a year, and 

 every four months thereafter. The bush, if not destroyed by ants, will 

 continue to give leaves for many years. Sometimes, but rarely, the 

 leaves wither and the crop fails. It is necessary to gather the leaves 

 and dry them as quickly as possible, and, if a shower comes on, to 

 gather them up at once, as they are injured by getting wet. Every 

 hundred plants will give an arroba of leaves, which is worth, in Tarma, 

 from six to seven dollars. Some persons do not transplant, but sow 

 several of the seed together, and, when they come up, pull up all but 

 the one most flourishing, and leave that in its original place. 



The leaf of this plant is to the Indian of Peru what tobacco is to 

 our laboring classes in the South — a luxury, which has become a 

 necessity. Supplied with an abundance of it, he sometimes performs 

 prodigies of labor, and can go without food for several days. "Without 

 it, he is miserable and will not work. It is said to be a powerful 

 stimulant to the nervous system, and, like strong coffee or tea, to take 

 away sleep; but, unlike tobacco and other stimulants, no one has 

 known it to be injurious to the health. Von Tschudi thinks that an 

 immoderate use of it is injurious, but that, taken in moderation, it is in 



