Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/74

54 The diseases which sometimes affect or destroy this vegetable in Mexico, as well the animals that assail it, may be summed up as follows:

1. La requitte, a wasting blight which affects the maize where it is sown upon poor soil and is subjected to damp, cold weather soon after planting.

2. El carbon—a vegetable fungus growth, resembling carbon or coal, which appears in the ears and destroys them. This abortion in the fruit is believed to be produced by an insect.

3. El hanjo—a species of uredo, which forms itself in the ear and ruins it. The disease is generally known as los Cuervos.

The animals and birds that attack corn are:

1. A sort of mole—talpa—which undermines the fields and destroy the young plants.

2. The larvæ of melolontha, which not only seize the roots, but often destroy the stalks and ears.

3. Flocks of pilfering birds, with which the corn-fields are covered, if they are not carefully watched during the approach of harvest. Neither day nor night are the ears safe from the attacks of these pilferers; and, in order to protect the crop, watchmen are placed on high stages, overlooking the acres, whence the traveller constantly hears their shouts, during the day, or the crack of the warning whips, during the night.

Maize may be planted in Mexico at different periods of the year, especially in those districts in which, for nine months, there is always sufficient moisture. In the tierra caliente, the rancheros, cultivate, in this grain, the best spots lying near their dwellings. In the cooler districts they have two kinds of culture—one by irrigation, and another upon a dry soil. The latter mode is subdivided, by the Mexicans, into three kinds—the humido, aventureso, and temporal.

In the first mode of cultivation the Maiz tardio, is sown, and it is usually found to be the most productive. A seeding made in a soil capable of preserving the winter's moisture and the humidity of the first spring rains, is called siembra de aventureso. In the temporal, a quickly ripening species of corn is planted—such as the maiz cuarentino—which may be cultivated either before or during the rainy season, from May to November.

It is rare that the common Mexican ranchero is sufficiently provident to select the soil for his corn crop, with due care; and accordingly we find that maize is often planted in the midst of fields abounding in stiff ungenial clay.