38 



others, that the crop is considered as poor if it does 

 not exceed a hundred ;^ while there are those who 

 assure us that it often amounts to three hundred for 

 one.f I am not disposed to question the account of 

 respectable writers, several of whom have been eye 

 witnesses of what they describe ; especially, as in- 

 stances of fertility occasionally occur that are truly 

 wonderful. I have myself seen lands that produced 

 a hundred and twenty, and even a hundred and sixty 



annually load eight or ten ships of four or five hundred tons bur- 

 then for Callao, exclusive of the fiour and ship-bread for the sup- 

 ply of the French ships that stop at Peru on their return to France^ 

 But all this would be little for this excellent country, if the earth 

 was properly cultivated, which is so fertile and easy of tillage, 

 that the inhabitants merely scratch it over with a plough, or more 

 frequently with the crooked branch of a tree, used for that purpose, 

 drawn by a pair of oxen ; and so prolific is the soil, that, for the 

 purpose of vegetation, the seed scarcely requires a slight covering, 

 and will yield a hundred for one.— Ibid. 



* Another more important source of wealth, although less ap- 

 preciated ]w its possessors, is what arises from the fertility of the 

 soil, which is truly astonishing. All the European fruits attain 

 perfection in this favoured climate, and the wines would be excel- 

 lent were it not for a bitter taste acquired in consequence of their 

 being kept in jars smeared with a kind of rosin, and afterwards 

 put into skins for transportation. When the crop of grain does 

 not exceed an hundred for one, it is considered as poor and scanty. 

 — Philosophical History^ book 8. 



It is not a good year when the crop of wheat does not exceed a 

 hundred for one, and it is the same with all other grain. — Ulloa^s 

 Foyage, vol. iii. 



t The soil is excellent, but differing, in some degree, as it ap- 

 proaches or recedes from the equator. The vailles of Copiapo 

 frequently yield three hundred for one ; the plains of Guaseo and 

 Coquimbo, ai-e nearly as productive, and the lands on the river 

 Chile are so fertile that they have given its name to the country.— 

 Sanson's {of Abbeville) GeograpJiy ; article Chili. 



