6th. Maiz tardio, or, de riego; the most productive of all varieties, and that which is cultivated around the city of Mexico, and in many moist regions. It sometimes yields five hundred per cent. on the quantity planted.
Maize succeeds best in Mexico in moist and warm climates; but it has the great advantage over the other cereal grains that it may be as successfully cultivated in this country in the tierras calientes, as in the tierras frias. Its highest limits here are from two to eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, and consequently the time required for ripening is different at different elevations. It varies from seven months to six weeks.
The diseases which sometimes affect or destroy this vegetable in Mexico, as well the animals that assail it, may be summed up as follows:
- La requitte, a wasting blight which affects the maize where it is sown upon poor soil and is subjected to damp, cold weather soon after planting.
- El carbon—a vegetable fungus growth, resembling carbon or coal, which appears in the ears and destroys them. This abortion in the fruit is believed to be produced by an insect.
- El hanjo—a species of uredo, which forms itself in the ear and ruins it. The disease is generally known as los Cuervos.
The animals and birds that attack corn are:
- A sort of mole—talpa—which undermines the fields and destroy the young plants.
- The larvæ of melolontha, which not only seize the roots, but often destroy the stalks and ears.
- Flocks of pilfering birds, with which the corn-fields are covered, if they are not carefully watched during the approach of