Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/270

250 and, seeing him busily employed, early one morning, I joined him, to observe what he was doing. He was planting cochineal: to those who are unacquainted with the process, it may be usefiil to state that this operation is dissimilar from any other mode of cultivation.

The nopal is a plant consisting of little stem, but expanding itself into wide thick leaves, more or less prickly according to its different kind: one or two of these leaves being set as one plant, at the distance of two or three feet square from each other, are inoculated with the cochineal, which, I scarcely need say, is an insect: it is the same as if you would take the blight off an apple or other common tree and rub a small portion of it on another tree free from the contagion, when the consequence would be that the tree so inoculated would become covered with the blight: a small quantity of the insects in question is sufficient for each plant, which, in proportion as it increases its leaves, is sure to be covered