178 



ing mountains, and a forest Of palm-trees, that 

 separates Guacara from the city of Nueva Va- 

 lencia. The fields of sugar-cane, from the soft 

 verdure of the young reeds, resemble a vast 

 meadow. Every thing denotes abundance ; but 

 it is at the price of the liberty of the cultivators. 

 At Mocundo, with two hundred and thirty Ne- 

 groes, seventy-seven tablones, or cane-fields, are 

 cultivated, each of which, ten thousand varas 

 square % yields a clear produce of two hundred 

 or two hundred and forty piastres a year. The 

 Creole cane and the cane of Otaheite-f- are 

 planted in the month of April, the first at four, 

 the second at five feet distance. The canet 

 ripens in v fourteen months. It flowers in the 

 month of October, if the plant be sufficiently 

 vigorous ; but the top is cut off before the pani- 

 cle is unfolded. In all the monocotyledonous 

 plants (the maguey cultivated at Mexico for 

 extracting the pulque, the wine-yielding palm- 

 tree, and the sugar-cane), the flowering alters 

 the quality of the juices. The fabrication of 

 sugar, the boiling, and the claying, are very 



* A tablon, equal to 1849 square toises, contains nearly 

 an acre and one fifth ; for a legal acre has 1344 square 

 toises, and legal acre is equal to one hectare. 



I At the island of Palma, where in the latitude of 29» 

 the sugar-cane is cultivated, according to Mr. de Buch, a& 

 high as 140 toises above the level of the Atlantic, the 

 Otaheite cane requires more heal than the ereole eane. 



