Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/46

16 MEXICO. ruin to the grain-growing states, had they not, instantly, turned to manufactures the capital, and the population, which agriculture had before employed. But the necessity for doing this, in a country where internal navigation af- forded to the landowner every facility for disposing of his produce, holds out but little encouragement to the pro- prietors of a country, where no such facilities exist, to at- tempt to bring into the market produce of a similar descrip- tion, however well adapted the nature of the soil may be for its growth. I do not, therefore, conceive that the exportations of Mexico in corn will ever be very considerable ; but in those articles, which we term Colonial produce, for which there is a constant demand in Europe, and which a large portion of her territory is so admirably qualified to produce, she has a source of wealth as inexhaustible as her mines themselves. The whole Eastern coast of Mexico, extending, in length, from the River Guasaciialco to the Northern frontier, and, in breadth, from the ocean, to that point upon the slope of the Cordillera, at which Tropical fruits cease to thrive, is susceptible of the very highest cultivation ; nor can any part of the now ex- hausted islands sustain a competition with the fertility of its virgin soil. The state of Vera Cruz alone is capable of supplying all Europe with sugar. Humboldt estimates the produce of its richest mould at 2800 kilogrammes per hectare, while that of Cuba does not exceed 1400 kilogrammes ; so that the balance is as two to one in favour of Vera Cruz. Coffee is produced in a ratio almost equally extraordinary. Indigo and tobacco succeed as well ; while, a little to the North, the state of Texas, which enjoys nearly the same cli- mate as Louisiana, or South Carolina, is equally well adapted to the growth of cotton, the great staple of the United States. Mexico can never want a market for these more precious arti- cles, to which the attention of the landowners is now much