Note 1278 — Chapter XVI · —Influences Of A Mountain Environment

Terrace tillage is rare in new countries of extensive plains, like the United States and Canada, where the level lands still suffice for the agricultural needs of the people; but in the confined mountain basins and valleys which made up the Inca's territory in ancient Peru, every available natural field was utilized for cultivation, and terraces brought the obstinate mountain sides under the dominion of the Andean peasant. They were constructed, a hundred or more in number, rising 1000 or 1500 feet above the floor of the highland valley, contracting in width as they rose, till the uppermost one was a narrow shelf only two feet broad. These were extended by communal labor year after year, with increase of population, just as to-day in Java and the neighboring islands, and became the property of the Inca. Streams from the higher slopes were conducted in canals and distributed from terrace to terrace, to irrigate and fertilize. These terraces therefore yielded the best crops of potatoes, maize and pulse. The cultivable area was further extended by floating gardens, consisting of rafts covered with earth, which floated on the surface of lakes.1278 They existed in ancient Mexico also,1279 and are used to-day in the lakes and streams of Tibet and Kashmir1280 and the rivers of overcrowded China.