Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 254 of 635 - First - Home
It would seem as if the whole island
had been originally a forest of palm, lemon, and wild orange
Trees.
The latter, which bear a small fruit, are probably anterior to the
arrival of Europeans,* who transported thither the agrumi of the
gardens; they rarely exceed the height of from ten to fifteen feet. (*
The best informed inhabitants of the island assert that the cultivated
orange-trees brought from Asia preserve the size and all the
properties of their fruits when they become wild. The Brazilians
affirm that the small bitter orange which bears the name of loranja do
terra and is found wild, far from the habitations of man, is of
American origin. Caldcleugh, Travels in South America.) The lemon and
orange trees are most frequently separate; and the new planters, in
clearing the ground by fire, distinguish the quality of the soil
according as it is covered with one or other of those groups of social
plants; they prefer the soil of the naranjal to that which produces
the small lemon. In a country where the making of sugar is not
sufficiently improved to admit of the employment of any other fuel
than the bagasse (dried sugar-cane) the progressive destruction of the
small woods is a positive calamity. The aridity of the soil augments
in proportion as it is stripped of the trees that sheltered it from
the heat of the sun; for the leaves, emitting heat under a sky always
serene, occasion, as the air cools, a precipitation of aqueous
vapours.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 254 of 635
Words from 69416 to 69677
of 174507
