CHAPTER XXIII.
AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES OF MEXICO.
1887.
Capacity for Production — Unequal Distibution of Land — Necessity of Irrigation — Drainage of the Valley — The Nochistongo Cutting — Poumaréde's Siphons — Garay's Project — A Pestilent Metropolis — Maize and Other Cereals — Chile Pepper — Plantains, Cacao, and Coffee — The Agave Americana — Pulque, Mescal, and Tequila — Hennequen and Ixtle — Sugar and Aguardiente — Tobacco, Olive-oil, and Wine — Cochineal, Indigo, Cotton — Silk Culture — Vanilla and Jalap — Stock-raising — Horned Cattle, Horses, and Hogs — Agricultural Prospects of Mexico.
Mexico, with regard to her agricultural resources, were they fully developed, would be found to be unsurpassed by any land, possessing, as she does, capabilities for the growth of almost every production of tropical and temperate climes. Her physical conformation bestows upon her three distinct climatic zones, designated as the tierra caliente, the tierra templada, and the tierra fria, meaning, respectively, the hot, temperate, and cold regions. And in them every want and luxury of man can be supplied. Luscious fruits and odoriferous flowers,[1] aromatic herbs and medicinal plants, abound in profusion. The cultivation of cereals and vegetables, of coffee and cacao, the olive, the vine, and the sugar-cane, of tobacco and the indigo plant, can be developed to an almost unlimited degree in this fair conservatory of nature. Extensive forests
- ↑ Busto enumerates 87 different kinds of fruit, among which are many natives of the temperate zone, such as the peach, apricot, apple — of which fruit there are seven classes — the gooseberry and strawberry. Estad. Rep. Mex., i. la pte, 4-5.
