Page:Appleton's Guide to Mexico.djvu/119

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AGRICULTURE.
91

The most abundant fruits are oranges, limes, bananas, and pineapples.

Flowers are cheap and plentiful at all seasons. Some species bloom on the great plateau. Dahlias and roses are most common in the parks and gardens of the cities.

Brazil-Wood—Leaves, Flower, and Fruit.

The country possesses many other beautiful flowering plants that are known only to Europeans in the botanic gardens, such as the clavel, floripondio, and azucena.

We may sum up the flora of Mexico as follows: There are fifty-six kinds of building-woods and twenty-one kinds of "cabinet"-wood; four varieties of gum and three of resin; twelve kinds of forage; one hundred species of odoriferous flowers, and fifty-two of cereals and vegetables; eighty-seven kinds of fruit, and one hundred and thirteen species of medicinal plants.

There are in all ten thousand known families of plants, many of which are of no economical importance. The principal trees and shrubs of the country are referred to in the itineraries of Part Second.


XXIX.

Agriculture.

According to Prescott, [1] agriculture in the Aztec Empire was in the same state of advancement as the other arts

  1. Conquest of Mexico, vol. i, p. 134.