209 



in an official letter addressed to the Secretary of State at 

 Washington, estimates the exportation of North American 

 flour for Columbia at 20,000 barrels a year. (Message from 

 the President of the United States, 1822, p. 48. See also 

 above. Vol. iv, p. 104, 105, and 111, 112.) In a state of 

 free trade, the immense progress of the art of navigation ex- 

 poses the native cultivation to a dangerous rivalry with that 

 of the most distant countries. The fields of the Crimea 

 supply the markets of Leghorn and Marseilles j the United 

 States furnish Europe with corn, and in times of scarcity 

 the table-land of Mexico sends its produce to Spain, Portu- 

 gal, and England. Regions, some of which scarcely pro- 

 duce the 6th or 7th, and others the 20th or 25th grain, are 

 placed in competition with each other, and the problem of 

 the utility of a production is complicated by the variable ef- 

 fects of the fertility of the soil, and the price of labour. The 

 western part of Columbia (New Grenada), will always possess 

 great advantages with respect to the production of the cere- 

 alia, by the magnitude of its mountains, and the extent of its 

 table-lands, over the eastern part of Columbia (Venezuela)j it 

 thence results that the rivalry of the flour of Socorro and 

 of Bogota, which goes down by the Meta, will be to be di- 

 vided by the regions north of the Oroonoko. Where tem- 

 perate regions are in the vicinity of hot, between 300 and 500 

 toises high (as in the temperate spots of the provinces of 

 Cumana and Caraccas), the cultivation of sugar, of coffee, 

 and of the cerealia is equally practicable, and experience 

 proves, pretty generally, that the cultivation of the two 

 former is preferred as being the most lucrative. 



Quinquina. The Cuspar, or Cortex Angosturce, falsely 

 called the quinquina of the Oroonoko, has become famous by 

 ±he industry of the Catalan-Capucin monks. It is not a 

 Rubiacee like the Cinchona, but a plant of the family of 

 Diosmes, or Rutac£s. This precious plant has hitherto been 

 exported only from the Spanish Guyana, though it is also 



VOL. VI. P 



