closed within cultivated and wooded land resist 

 the labourer a shorter time than soils alike 

 circumscribed, but making part of a vast surface 

 of the same nature. This observation is in fact 

 extremely just, whether the soil be covered with 

 heath, as in the north of Europe ; with cist uses, 

 mastic-trees, or palm et toes, as in Spain ; or 

 with cactuses, argemones, or brathys, as in equi- 

 noctial America. The more space the associa- 

 tion occupies, the more resistance do the social 

 plants oppose to the labourer. With this gene- 

 ral cause are joined in the llanos of Venezuela 

 the action of the small grasses, that impoverish 

 the soil ; the total absence of trees and brush- 

 wood; the sandy winds, the ardour of which 

 is increased by the contact of a surface, that 

 absorbs the rays of the Sun during twelve 

 hours, and on which no shadow is ever project- 

 ed, except that of the stalks of the aristides, 

 chanchuses, and paspalums. The progress, which 

 the vegetation of large trees, and the cultivation 

 of dicotyledonous plants, have made in the vici- 

 nity of towns, for instance around Calabozo 

 and Pao, prove what may be gained upon the 

 steppe, by attacking it in small portions, enclos- 

 ing it by degrees, and dividing it by copses, and 

 canals of irrigation. Perhaps the influence of 

 the winds, which render the soil sterile, might 

 be diminished, by sowing in the large way, 

 as on fifteen or twenty acres, the seeds of the 



VOL. VI. f 



