Vegetables in great variety are raised, some like ours, others never before met with. Potatoes in many varieties grow up to an altitude of 13,000 feet or more. The wild bitter tuber from which the varieties were probably developed still grows wild. Enock says the yellow potato (not sweet) is unrivalled for excellence, but I saw none superior to the best of our white. Other tubers cultivated are the yam (three crops a year), manioc, and others.
Maize. The best maize in the world, says Vivian, is grown in Peru; but I am sure that he never ate any sweet corn in Rhode Island. Grown in all parts of the country up to 11,500 feet, it is native, like potatoes and cotton, and is one of the main stays of the country. Maize and potatoes are the chief foods of the Indians. Parched corn is much eaten on the plateau; it is most useful where bread is not to be had, and often is to be preferred. Toasted maize is called cancha. Three, sometimes four, crops are had annually. Food for man and beast, the stalks used for fodder, it is all consumed in the country. That grown near Cuzco is said to be of the finest quality, with grains the size of large beans, a very thin pellicle, and very farinaceous. One district in Lima produces 10,000 tons a year.
Cereals are raised, wheat, barley, and oats, from 5000 to 11,500 feet. Wheat formerly grown on the coast is now seen on the uplands, but large importations of wheat and flour are made. Barley grows to a greater height, 12,000 feet or more and is much used for animal fodder, for mules and horses, taking the place of oats, which are not much cultivated. Alfalfa, much better for fodder than barley, is largely used, growing in sheltered places up to 12,000 feet, about the same as maize. A specialty of Peru and Bolivia is quinua, which is very prolific and grows freely in poor soil from 9000 up to 13,500 feet. It would be well if it were widely cultivated in other countries. Suitable conditions could be found in many places not necessarily at such altitudes. For many purposes it seems preferable to corn meal. It may be eaten raw with sugar or water or cooked as mush; it is called a tonic for soroche. The grains are round, about the size of mustard seed.
Tobacco is raised to a small extent, especially in Tumbes and adjoining districts. It is called of superior quality, and is preferred by some Peruvians to the imported, but it is too strong and coarse for many; the upper class Peruvians generally prefer Havanas. Perhaps 1000 tons are produced, some of which is exported to Bolivia, Chile, and Brazil. The Government has a monopoly of its sale, regulating price and profits of native and imported both, and owning the cigarette factories.
Ramie grass and haricot beans produce each four crops a year, flax and hemp, two crops; the castor oil plant is cultivated, and at the south the mulberry with the silk-worm.
Forestry
Forest products except rubber have received little attention, although the export of tagua, vegetable ivory, has greatly increased within the last ten years. The palm grows wild in the montaña. The nuts are picked up by the Indians and carried to Iquitos, thence sent to Europe. They are also used in the forest for curing rubber, the only industry of much importance in this section.
Rubber for years has been exported in considerable quantities, at first collected from districts on the tributaries of the Marañon, later from those of the Ucayali. Earlier the rubber gatherers called caucheros cut down the caucho trees, a hole in the ground having been previously prepared to receive the milk, which was then coagulated by a solution of soap with the juice of a native plant called vetilla. This method of cutting down the trees, which still has some vogue in other countries, is now forbidden in Peru. The caucho here averages 100 pounds to a tree. It was exported in planks or cakes weighing 80 to 100 pounds each. The jebe, rubber of the finest quality passing for the best Pará fine, comes from the hevea brasiliensis or other species of hevea. These trees are found lower down than the castilloa elastica (from which comes the caucho) at an altitude of about 300 feet, where it grows to a height of 60 to 70 feet. By tapping the hevea, about 20 pounds yearly of rubber is obtained. Peru’s rubber export 1908-12 averaged 4¹⁄₂-5¹⁄₂ million pounds worth 20 to 30 million dollars; but the lowering of price due to the Ceylon plantations, and perhaps the discovery of atrocities practiced upon the Indians in some quarters greatly diminished the export for some years. It seems to be reviving. In 1916 $3,400,000 worth was exported. Better regulations have been made and the possibility of arranging a system of plantations is discussed. Nearly all the rubber is exported from Iquitos; but some from the Madre de Dios section, the Inambari, and the Urubamba goes out by way of Mollendo. The export duty of Peru, 8 per cent, has been much less than that of Brazil.
Other forest products, which now receive little attention, include all kinds of valuable timbers, medicinal plants, dye woods, etc., usual in a tropical forest.