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months more they are ready for cutting. In rich virgin soil it is not 

 uncommon to see canes twelve feet high and astonishingly thick. 



The Indian corn and pulse are in general ripe in four months or: 

 eighteen weeks. The average return is two hundred for one ; it is^- 

 a bad harvest when it falls short of one hundred and fifty. 



The raandioca is rarely ready to take up in less than eighteen or 

 twenty months ; if the land be suitable, it then produces from six to 

 twelve pound weight per plant *. They grow very little indigo in 

 this neighbourhood, and what they have is of indifferent quality. 

 Their pumpkins are of enormous size, and sometimes are served up 

 as table-vegetables, but more frequently given as food to the horses. 

 Melons here are scarcely palatable. 



In no branch of husbandry are the farmers so defective as in the 

 management of cattle. No artificial grasses are cultivated, no en- 

 closures are made, nor is any fodder laid up against the season of 

 scarcity. The cows are never milked regularly ; they seem to be con- 

 sidered rather as an incumbrance to a farm than a valuable part of 

 the stock. They constantly require salt, which is given them once 

 in fifteen or twenty days, in small proportions. Their dairies, if 

 such they may be called, are managed in so slovenly a manner, 

 that the little butter that is made becomes rancid in a few days, 

 and the cheese is good for nothing. In this essential department 

 they are deplorably deficient ; rarely indeed is there to be seen a 

 farm with one convenience belonging to it. For want of proper 



* This generous root requires but little preparation to make it serve as a substitute for 

 bread. When taken out of the ground they wash and scrape it clean, and then rasp it on 

 a coarse grater of iron or copper, press the juice from it, and place it on a hot surface, a 

 shallow copper-pan for instance, four or five feet in diameter, or a clay one, with a brisk 

 fire underneath; while drying it is constantly stirred, and when the moisture is completely 

 evaporated, it is immediately fit for use. If preserved from wet, it will keep good a long 

 time. In broths and soups it becomes gelatinous, and affords rich nourishment ; it is par- 

 ticularly-good when eaten with cheese. The wild or spurious mandioca, called Ipe, is 

 little inferior, when roasted, to fine chesnuts. The Portugueze introduce it at table, boiled 

 a>; well as roasted. 



