THE ATLANTIC COAST AND ITS CONNECTIONS. 39 
table growth is very rapid, the country is as yet free from 
foreign weeds. With us the most rapidly growing and 
pernicious weeds have all been imported; and on the 
Hawaiian Islands the vegetable growths that have laid 
waste thousands of acres of the best pasturage are the 
lantana, verbena, and indigo, not one of them indigenous. 
In the course of years cultivation may bring these agri¬ 
cultural curses; but at present the Guatemalan planter in 
Livingston has only palms, canes, ferns, ginger, and other 
easily eradicated plants to contend with. 
Indian corn ( maiz ) is planted in slight holes made with 
a stick and covered with the foot, and seed planted on 
Thursday has been found four inches high on the follow¬ 
ing Monday. The stalks are sometimes seventeen feet 
high, and average three ears each; only ninety days are 
required to mature the crop, which is gathered three times 
each year. Upland rice is scattered broadcast on the soil, 
and the straw grows six feet high, with generous heads, 
yielding the finest rice known; two crops can be raised 
each year. Sugar-cane has been found to yield three tons 
of sugar per acre for twenty years without replanting, — 
a result unknown in any other sugar-country. At present 
there are no mills in eastern Guatemala, and only enough 
cane is planted to supply the demand for eating, or rather 
chewing. 
Bananas have within the last ten years become very 
common all over the United States, and every one is fa¬ 
miliar with the imported varieties ; but few are aware that 
the varieties grown in the tropics exceed two hundred, 
many of them too delicate to bear transportation, and as 
far superior to the common sorts as a choice table-apple 
surpasses the cider-apple of our New England pastures. 
