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Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain
Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain Author:Alexander Von Humboldt, Mary Maples Dunn Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the island of Cuba, the establishment of a great sugar plantation, worked by 300 negroes, and yielding annually 500,000 kilo- grammes of sugar, requires an adva... more »nce of two millions of livres tournoist, and that it brings in from 300,000 to 350,0001 livres of revenue. The Mexican colonist may choose along the coast, and in the valleys of greater or less depth, the most suitable climate for the sugar-cane; and he has less to fear from frost than the colonist of Louisiana. But the extraordinary configuration of the surface of New Spain throws great obstacles in the way of transporting sugar to Vera Cruz. The plantations now in existence are for the most part very remote from the coast opposite to Europe. The country having yet neither canals nor roads fit for carriage, the mule carriage of the sugar to Vera Cruz increases its price a piastre per arroba, or eight sous per kilogramme.§ These obstacles will be much diminished by the roads now making from Mexico to Vera Cruz by Orizaba and by Xalapa, along the eastern slope of the Cordilleras. It is also probable that the progress, of colonial agriculture will contribute to people the shores of New Spain, 1,103,500 Ib.avoird. Trans. t 83.340/. sterling. Trans. J From 12,500/. to 14,58 U. sterling. TVaw. § About 3d. per 2 Ib. avoird. Traiu. which for ages have remained desert and uncultivated. It is observed in Mexico, that the vezou, or juice expressed from the sugar cane is more or less sugary, according as the plant grows in the plain, or on an elevated table land. The same difference exists in the cane cultivated at Malaga, the Canary Islands, and the Havannah. The elevation of the soil every where produces the same effects on vegetation, as the difference of geographical latitude. The climate has also an influence ...« less