Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/87

MEXICO. 55 the interior of the country, until within the last few years, when the large returns derived by the merchants of the Havanna from their Cafetales, or coffee grounds, induced some of the Mexican proprietors to turn their attention to this branch of colonial agriculture. In 1818 and 1819, extensive plantations of coffee were laid out near Cordova and Orizava, to which constant addi- tions have been made during the last three years. The tree has likewise been introduced into the valley of Cuautla, by Don Antonio Velasco, and into that of Cuerna- vaca by the Agent of the Duke of Monteleone ; who possesses, as representative of the family of Cortes, the large estate of Atlajomulco, in the immediate vicinity of the town. The two estates of Velasco, at Cocoyoc and Pantitlan, contain about five hundred thousand coffee plants, fifty thousand of which were in full produce when I saw them in 1826. The crop of the preceding year amounted to five thousand Arro- bas, or 125,0001bs., which gives two and a half pounds of coffee as the average produce of each plant. I am induced to believe that this will be the ordinary produce of good land throughout Mexico : it considerably exceeds that of the Havanna, where Humboldt gives 860 kilogrammes as the average of a hectare of land, containing 3500 plants ; but it is a much lower estimate than any Mexican planter would make, as, in many parts of the country, from three to four pounds are said to be a fair average crop. I could not ascer- tain, however, that this calculation was founded upon cor- rect data; and I do not, therefore, give it as one that may be strictly relied upon : but I know one instance, of a single coffee tree, having produced twenty-eight pounds of coffeev in the garden of Don Pablo de la Llave, at Cordova, and it is the certainty that this fact is unquestionably true, that induces me to give, as the possible average of good grounds in Mexico, a produce more than double that which, in the Island of Cuba, is the maximum of the best year in three.