Page:Guatimala or the United Provinces of Central America in 1827-8.pdf/256

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ble medicinal herbs, remain neglected and unknown, because no one will take the trouble of collecting them. The cedars in some parts, exceeding five fathoms in circumference, and 100 feet in height; the mahogany-tree falling little short of this immense size; the valuable Palo de Maria, and the incorruptible Guyacan, alike surrounded by immense woods of every other kind of timber, reign in silent majesty, undisturbed by the sound of the woodman's axe.

Amidst almost every production both of tropical and intertropical climes, may be named among grains, maize, producing in some parts three hundred fold, and sometimes two or three harvests a year, wheat, barley, rice, potatoes, greens, and all kinds of culinary vegetables.

Among fruits may be enumerated three species of plantains, four of apples, five of pineapples, five of peaches, three of apricots, ten of jocotes, (a kind of plum) pears, melons, grapes, oranges, figs, cherries, pines, besides about forty others, of which the name alone would convey no idea to an European ear. To these may be added, as productions of the country, bark, sarsaperilla, cinnamon, hellebore, musk, coffee, ginger, cassia, tamarinds, aniseed, Brazil wood, indigo, cocoa, cochineal, vanilla, sugar, flax, tobacco, cotton of various species, pepper, sulphur,