37 



covered by experience that all artificial manures are 

 superfluous, if not injurious; they allege in proof 

 the great fertility of the land in the vicinity of St, 

 Jago, which, notwithstanding it has never been ma- 

 nured since the settlement of the Spaniards, a period 

 of two hundred and thirty -nine years, though con- 

 stantly cultivated by them, and for an unknown time 

 by the Indians before them, has lost nothing of its 

 productive properties. 



Another advantage resulting from the richness of 

 the soil is, that Chili is not infested with those 

 worms so destructive to grain in the blade, vdiich 

 are produced or multiplied by the fermentation and 

 putrefaction of manure. 



Those who have written upon Chili are not agreed 

 as to the product of the soil. Some say that it yields 

 from sixty to eighty, and even a hundred fold;* 



* The river of Chile, called also the river of Aconcagua, from 

 its rising in a valley of that name, is celebrated for the prodigious 

 quantity of wheat which is every year produced upon its shores ; 

 from whence, and the vicinity of St. Jago, is brought all the grain 

 exported from Valparaiso to Callao, Lima, and other parts of 

 Peru^ Such is the quantity, that it is inconceivable to any one un^. 

 acquainted with the excellence of the soil, which usually yields 

 from sixty to eighty for one, how a country so thinly peopled, 

 whose cultivable lands are comprised within a few vailles of not 

 more than ten leagues square, can furnish such quantities of grain 

 in addition to what is wanted for the support of the inhabitants. 

 During the eight months while we were at Valparaiso, there sail- 

 ed from t}iat port alone thirty vessels loaded with wheat, each of 

 which would average six thousand fanegas^ or three thousand 

 mule loads, a quantity sufficient for the subsistence of sixty thou- 

 sand persons for a year. — Frazier^s Voyage^ vol. i. 



Besides the commerce of hides, tallow and dried beef, the inha- 

 bitants of Conception carry on a trade in wheat, with wdiich they 



