Am-De°c%P9larm-}  Vanilla.  575 
the  first  place  known  in  which  the  plant  is  under  cultivation  in 
America.  Notwithstanding  numerous  inquiries  made  by  me,  I  have 
found  it  well-nigh  impossible,  even  with  the  aid  of  tradition  to 
ascertain  the  exact  time  in  which  the  cultivation  began ;  this  alone 
being  known,  that  the  period  is  a  remote  one.  From  some  of  the 
old  archives  of  Papantla  we  derive  the  information  that  in  the  year 
1760  there  were  already  in  existence  Vanilla  forests  under  cultiva- 
tion. The  state  of  Vera  Cruz  has  had  and  to-day  possesses  great 
natural  advantages  for  the  production  of  Vanilla.  But  it  is  culti- 
vated only  in  the  cantons  of  Misantla  and  Papantla.  For  a  number 
of  years  Mexico  supplied  the  markets  of  the  world  with  this  product, 
but  of  late  years  the  island  of  Bourbon  and  Java  have  come  in  com- 
petition with  European  markets  to  a  marked  degree. 
With  this  brief  history  of  the  origin  and  nature  of  Vanilla  start 
out  with  me  on  a  bright,  clear  morning  in  the  month  of  February, 
with  the  thermometer  ranging  from  85 0  to  ioo°  ;  dressed  in 
thin  linen,  with  a  light  Panama  hat,  and  mounted  upon  a  mustang 
for  our  first  visit  to  the  Vanilla  fields,  located  about  nine  miles  from 
Papantla.  The  first  error  that  you  need  to  correct  is  our  northern 
conceptions  of  a  field.  It  is  not  here  the  carefully  tilled,  snugly 
fenced,  and  finely  cultivated  tract  of  land  that  characterizes  the 
marketable  products  of  New  Jersey  or  Pennsylvania,  but  a  wild, 
boundless,  dense  and  almost  impenetrable  forest,  with  undergrowth 
so  dense  and  rank  that  our  mustangs  must  be  abandoned  at  a  by- 
path, and  we  ourselves  compelled  to  stoop  almost  to  a  creeping 
posture  to  penetrate  it.  Look  at  yonder  tree — a  Mexican  cedar — 
20  feet  in  height,  covered  with  dark  green  luxuriant  verdure,  with 
a  small  tapering  trunk,  a  few  feet  in  circumference,  and  clinging  to 
and  apparently  growing  out  of  its  bark  observe  that  strange  look- 
ing, clinging  vine,  in  circumference  a  little  larger  than  an  ordinary 
lead  pencil,  shooting  up  into  the  tree,  covering  its  branches,  and 
running  from  it  into  the  adjoining  trees,  and  often  forming  festoons  and 
arbors  so  dense  and  thick  as  to  exclude  the  rays  of  the  sun  at  noon  day. 
Covered  with  a  dark  green,  and  spear  shaped  leaf,  and  hanging 
pendant  from  its  interlacing  branches,  green  pods,  from  four  to  ten 
inches  long,  and  you  have  a  picture  of  a  Vanilla  vine  as  I  first  saw 
it  in  its  native  soil  and  in  its  highest  state  of  cultivation.  Tree  after 
tree  in  this  vast  forest  is  covered  with  those  luxuriant  vines,  peep- 
ing from  which,  in  all  the  glory  of  tropical  luxuriance,  are  countless 
