Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/97

 M EX ICO. 65 is produced in Oaxaca than is registered, an allowance of at least one-third must be made for contraband upon the coast. This would give 1,830,237 dollars as the value of the ex- portations, (taking 1,372,678 dollars as the average of the registers ;) while the produce, adding one- Fourth, as before stated, to the average registered value on fifty-seven years, (1,601,910 dollars,) would be 2,002,387 dollars, which bears a fair proportion to the exportation, and at which I am con- sequently inclined to think that the cochineal annually raised in Mexico may fairly be estimated. Many are disposed to rate it much higher, (two millions and a half of dollars,) but as I am not in possession of any data that warrant this supposition, I shall confine myself to the calculation given above, in which I am borne out by po- sitive facts. The crop is divided into three classes, — Grana, Granilla, and Polvos de Grana: to these may be added, Zacatilla, the name given to the December crop in the Mis- teca, the quality of which is thought to be superior to that of the others. WAX. The great consumption of wax in the church ceremonies renders this an article of much importance. Some attention is paid to it in the Peninsula of Yucatan, where there are Colmenares, containing six and seven hundred hives. But Mexico imports annually a large quantity, (from two to three thousand Arrobas,) which, now that the direct trade with the Havanna is closed, is introduced principally through New Orleans. Mexico possesses, in addition to the productions enume- rated above, Tabascan pepper, (Pimienta malagueta, o'llai- Jiada.) which grows wild throughout that State, and is col- lected in the months of July and August ; Campeche log-wood, Mahogany, equal to that of St. Domingo or Cuba, VOL. I. F