Note 1 — Chapter I

: Since the above was written, attempts have been made, chiefly by natives to plant coffee on patena land. The result is a conviction that the cultivation is practicable, by the use of manures from the beginning; whereas forest land is capable, for three or four years at least, of yielding coffee without any artificial enrichment of the soil.

2: HUMBOLDT is disposed to ascribe the absence of trees in the vast grassy plains of South America, to "the destructive custom of setting fire to the woods, when the natives want to convert the soil into pasture: when during the lapse of centuries grasses and plants have covered the surface with a carpet, the seeds of trees can no longer germinate and fix themselves in the earth, although birds and winds carry them continually from the distant forests into the Savannahs."—Narrative, vol. i. ch. vi. p. 242.