ITS PRODUCTION AND QUANTITY SILK. 



73 



The cochineal bug feeds only on the leaf of the opuntia. The 

 process of rearing is complicated and attended with much diffi- 

 culty. The leaves of the nopal upon which the seed is deposited, 

 must be kept free from all foreign substances, and, in the cochin- 

 eal districts the Indian women constantly tend the plants, brushing 

 them lightly with a squirrel's tail. 



In a good year one pound of seed deposited upon the plant in 

 October, will yield in December, twelve pounds of cochineal, leav- 

 ing a sufficient quantity of seed behind for a second crop in May. 

 The plantations of the cochineal cactus are confined to the district 

 of the Misteca, in the state of Oajaca and in the valley of Oajaca 

 at Ocotlan. 



Some of the Haciendas de Nopales contain from fifty to sixty 

 thousand plants, arranged in lines like the aloes in the Maguey 

 plantations already described, and cut down to a certain height, in 

 order to enable the Nopaleros to clean them more easily. 



In the year 1758, a government registry-office was established 

 in Oajaca, in consequence of the complaints of British merchants, 

 who had received cargoes of adulterated cochineal. This bureau 

 kept an accurate account of the production and value of the article, 

 within its jurisdiction, and a tabular statement of the result has 

 since been published in the Memoria Estadistica de Oajaca, &c. &c, 

 of Don J. M. Murgnia y Galardi, who was a deputy to the Cortes 

 from that province. By this document, and subsequent returns, it 

 appears that from 1758 to 1832, inclusive, — or in 75 years, — 

 44,195,750 pounds of cochineal were produced in the state of 

 Oajaca alone, which were worth $106,170,671 at the market price. 



Silk. 



After the independence of Mexico was secured the Mexicans in 

 the neighborhood of Zelaya, and in a few other places, attempted 

 the cultivation of the mulberry tree, for the purpose of feeding 

 silk worms. But this agricultural speculation failed. The plan- 

 ters did not possess the Chinese mulberry, which is universally 

 adopted as the best in all silk producing countries. 



In 1841 an association under the style of the " Michoacan Com- 

 pany," was organized, in the capital of Michoacan, for the encour- 

 agement of silk culture. The members of this body labored dili- 

 gently to introduce the Chinese tree, and spread it far and wide 

 through the states of Vera Cruz, Puebla, Mexico, Queretaro, Jalisco, 

 Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosi, Sonora and Michoacan. These 

 labors were performed by thirty-six Juntas de fomento, or com- 

 j 



