bushels, gives 10s. 4¾ d. or 12s. 9½ d. as the price of the bushel, which is now selling here at seven shillings. This is the more remarkable, as it is not the case in any other part of South America. The best Chilian corn, for instance, sells upon the spot for 313 reales de plata, the fanega, or seven reals per carga.
The carriage to the coast, (near which it is usually grown,) and freight to Lima, which is the great market on the Pacific side, are estimated at three reals more; and, at Lima itself, it sells for twenty-four reals, (three dollars,) or about twelve shillings English money; while in Mexico the average price is nearly five times as much. But in New Spain, the want of roads, and the consequent difficulty of intercourse between the corn growing States, excludes from competition, in each market, all those who are situated beyond a very circumscribed circle in its immediate vicinity; and thus maintains a sort of factitious price, for an article, the intrinsic value of which ought not to bear any sort of proportion to that which it now possesses, from the abundance in which it is already produced, and the facility with which its cultivation might be carried to almost any extent.
Whether the obstacles can be overcome, which have given it this factitious value, and to what extent they will be so, are questions which time, and the good sense of the Mexican people, must decide; but the contents of this chapter will prove
