Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The More
Space The Association Occupies The More Resistance Do The Social
Plants Oppose To The Labourer.
With this general cause others are
combined in the Llanos of Venezuela; namely the action of the small
grasses
Which impoverish the soil; the total absence of trees and
brushwood; the sandy winds, the heat of which is increased by contact
with a surface absorbing the rays of the sun during twelve hours, and
unshaded except by the stalks of the aristides, chanchuses, and
paspalums. The progress observable on the vegetation of large trees
and the cultivation of dicotyledonous plants in the vicinity of towns,
(for instance around Calabozo and Pao) prove what may be gained upon
the Llano by attacking it in small portions, enclosing it by degrees,
and dividing it by coppices and canals of irrigation. Possibly the
influence of the winds which render the soil sterile might be
diminished by sowing on a large scale, for example, over fifteen or
twenty acres, the seeds of the psidium, the croton, the cassia, or the
tamarind, which prefer dry, open spots. I am far from believing that
the savannahs will ever disappear entirely; or that the Llanos, so
useful for pasturage and the trade in cattle, will ever be cultivated
like the valleys of Aragua or other parts near the coast of Caracas
and Cumana: but I am persuaded that in the lapse of ages a
considerable portion of these plains, under a government favourable to
industry, will lose the wild aspect which has characterized them since
the first conquest by Europeans.
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