"We have preferred here cultivating foreign trees, whilst we had here a great many much better than they, as for their wood, shade and elegance.
"The private efforts of men we cannot forget have changed the aspect of our forests and also of the cattle of the country, by enriching it with new seeds and new plants and employing the combined means of nature and of work."
In many departments the palm tree is found, also many kinds of fruit and ornamental trees. There are trees, shrubs and herbs with medicinal properties and good for dyeing and weaving, and also resinous, aromatic and alkaline ones.
The series of the plants with healing properties is long; there may be found the sarsaparilla, the marshmallow, the liquorice, the rhubarb, the camomile, the wild celery and many other plants, which it would be too long to enumerate here.
Among the fruit trees accustomed to this climate there are: the orange tree, the apple tree, the pear tree, the apricot tree, the pomegranate tree, the peach tree, the cherry tree, the lemon tree, the plum tree, the nut tree, the quince tree, the olive tree, the medlar tree, the almond tree, the chestnut tree, the fig tree, the date palm, etc., etc.
Among the other classes we find the poplar, the cypress, the elm, the oak, the plantain, the acacia, the eucalyptus, the cedar, the magnolia, the white mulberry tree, etc.
As for the cereals and vegetables, all kinds of them grow here perfectly and abundantly. Wheat, maize, barley, lucerne, are the principal rural products. The chick-pea, the French bean, the gray pea, the bean, the sugar-pea, the hastings, the lentils, the potatoes, the Spanish potatoes, the carrot, the radishes, the turnips, the pumpkins, the beet root, etc., and all kinds of pot herbs, the watermelons, the melon and the strawberry grow also abundantly.
The grape vine, the flax, the tobacco, the canary seed, the cotton, the anise-seed, the hemp, the currin seed, the peanuts and many other classes give good results. During these last years the nursing of the vine, the olive, the lucerne, and the tobacco has spread itself a great deal.
As for the flowers, there is such an immense variety of them and such a plenty that the Republic has deserved the name of "The country of sun and flowers." The industry of nosegays and crowns has reached an unheard-of development. Beside the garden plants that belong to the country, they nurse here all the varieties known in Europe.
The environs of Montevideo count a great many important establishments dedicated to the commerce of plants, ornamental and fruit trees, all of the most valuable kinds.