Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/73

Rh no general tariff of prices can be assigned to Mexican breadstuffs until some great national market shall be established or Mexico becomes an exporting country. Neighborhoods, at present establish prices.

or, is a gift from the New World to the Old, and is unquestionably the favorite food of the great mass of the inhabitants of our continent. In Mexico, every household is furnished with it abundantly, and all classes use it habitually.

Although this plant is a native of America it is never found growing wild in the republic. Single stocks may be occasionally seen in remote or uninhabited districts, but they are rarely met, and, in all likelihood, have been sown by the flocks of robber birds who ravage the Mexican milpas or corn fields during the ripening season.

The best cultivated varieties in Mexico, are:

1st. Maiz de padus; with small ears, of eight rows, and the most unimportant of all the varieties raised in the country.

2d. Maiz manchado, or chiniesco; a productive species with white, yellow and red grains;—sometimes also entirely blue, in which case, it is called pinto.

3d. Maiz blanco; a very productive kind, yielding a fine sweet meal.

4th. Maiz amarillo; this is sub-divided into:—1st, maiz amarillo grueso, which is very generally cultivated and rarely yields less than two or three ears each, with from three to six hundred kernels or grains. 2d, maiz amarillo pequeno, is smaller and less stout; but in a fruitful soil its yield weighs from ten to fifteen hundred weight, more than the grueso.

5th. Maiz cuarentino; or quarentine corn; better known in Mexico under the name of maiz tremes, or, olote Colorado, which ripens quickly and may be planted in the coldest parts of Mexico.

6th. Maiz tardio, or, de riego; the most productive of all varieties, and that which is cultivated around the city of Mexico, and in many moist regions. It sometimes yields five hundred per cent, on the quantity planted.

Maize succeeds best in Mexico in moist and warm climates; but it has the great advantage over the other cereal grains that it may be as successfully cultivated in this country in the tierras calientes, as in the tierras frias. Its highest limits here are from two to eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, and consequently the time required for ripening is different at different elevations. It varies from seven months to six weeks.