The use of chocolate is so universal in Mexico and throughout Spanish countries, that it might naturally be supposed the cultivation of cacao was largely and carefully attended to in the republic. Such, however, is not the case. The cacao of Soconusco, and of the low grounds of Caraccas, Guatemala and Guyaquil, was found to be so superior to the Mexican article, that its production has been almost abandoned except in the neighborhood of Colima, or on the Isthmus and in the states of Tabasco and Chiapas.
Cochineal.
The Opuntia, or Indian fig, a species of cactus is the food in Mexico which supports an insect from whose body the dye known as Cochineal is made. It is found also in Brazil where it nourishes the grana sylvestre which affords a dye that is greatly inferior in color as well as durability to that produced by the grana fina of Mexico.
The grana fina resembles a small bug in size and color, covered with a whitish mealy powder, through which the rings or cross stripes on the back of the insect are distinctly visible; the female alone produces the dye; the males are smaller, and one is found sufficient to impregnate three hundred females.
The cochineal bug feeds only on the leaf of the opuntia. The process of rearing is complicated and attended with much difficulty. The leaves of the nopal upon which the seed is deposited, must be kept free from all foreign substances, and, in the cochineal districts the Indian women constantly tend the plants, brushing them lightly with a squirrel's tail.
In a good year one pound of seed deposited upon the plant in October, will yield in December, twelve pounds of cochineal, leaving a sufficient quantity of seed behind for a second crop in May. The plantations of the cochineal cactus are confined to the district of the Misteca, in the state of Oajaca and in the valley of Oajaca at Ocotlan.
Some of the Haciendas de Nopales contain from fifty to sixty thousand plants, arranged in lines like the aloes in the Maguey plantations already described, and cut down to a certain height, in order to enable the Nopaleros to clean them more easily.
In the year 1758, a government registry-office was established in Oajaca, in consequence of the complaints of British merchants, who had received cargoes of adulterated cochineal. This bureau kept an accurate account of the production and value of the article, within its jurisdiction, and a tabular statement of the result has since been published in the Memoria Estadistica de Oajaca, &c. &c., of Don J. M. Murgnia y Galardi, who was a deputy to the Cortes from that province. By this document, and subsequent returns, it appears that from 1758 to 1832, inclusive,—or in 75 years,—44,195,750 pounds of cochineal were produced in the state of Oajaca alone, which were worth $106,170,671 at the market price.
Silk.
After the independence of Mexico was secured the Mexicans in the neighborhood of Zelaya, and in a few other places, attempted the cultivation of the mulberry tree, for the purpose of feeding silk worms. But this agricultural speculation failed. The planters did not possess the Chinese mulberry, which is universally adopted as the best in all silk producing countries.