In A Few Places There Were
Palms, And I Was Surprised To See One At An Elevation Of At
Least 4500 Feet.
These palms are, for their family, ugly trees.
Their stem is very large, and of a curious form, being thicker
in the middle than at the base or top.
They are excessively
numerous in some parts of Chile, and valuable on account of
a sort of treacle made from the sap. On one estate near
Petorca they tried to count them, but failed, after having
numbered several hundred thousand. Every year in the early
spring, in August, very many are cut down, and when the
trunk is lying on the ground, the crown of leaves is lopped
off. The sap then immediately begins to flow from the upper
end, and continues so doing for some months: it is, however,
necessary that a thin slice should be shaved off from
that end every morning, so as to expose a fresh surface. A
good tree will give ninety gallons, and all this must have
been contained in the vessels of the apparently dry trunk.
It is said that the sap flows much more quickly on those
days when the sun is powerful; and likewise, that it is
absolutely necessary to take care, in cutting down the tree,
that it should fall with its head upwards on the side of the
hill; for if it falls down the slope, scarcely any sap will
flow; although in that case one would have thought that the
action would have been aided, instead of checked, by the force
of gravity.
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