Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/145

Rh and assented to without investigation, must yield to a discussion of the invincible obstacles which prevent an unwearied application to agricultural pursuits.

From the very nature of the soil, climate, and situation of the greater part of the lands, they cannot be ploughed with any prospect of advantage. Either they are immense parched deserts, without any irrigation or refreshing moisture, if we except the small portion of humidity they receive from heaven; or frozen mountains, which, being condemned to a perpetual rigidity, are not susceptible of such a degree of culture as would hold out the reasonable hope of a crop.

There is no doubt but that the produce might be augmented to a certain degree by the melioration of the lands, and the constant ploughing of the extensive plains; since there are many of them to which the water collected by the rains might, as well as the currents of the large rivers, be directed, at the same time that the vices inherent in the soil might be corrected by artificial means.

By such resources the Spanish provinces of Biscay and Guipuzcoa, naturally steril, have been rendered so fertile as to yield, on the greater part of their grounds, two distinct annual crops. It is owing to the same cause that Catalonia, although a mountainous territory, is represented as one of the best cultivated provinces of Spain. It would not be expedient, however, to undertake works of such an immense expence in Peru, seeing that they would not repay the funds indispensable to their execution, and would not elevate the viceroyalty to a great pitch of prosperity.

It consists in the augmented number of vassals, and not in the excessive extent of territory. By men the lands are vated.