Even the crops of
barley and wheat are often brought into the houses to be dried and
ripened. (11/9. Ag?eros "Descrip. Hist. de la Prov. de Chilo?" 1791
page 94.) At Valdivia (in the same latitude of 40 degrees with
Madrid) grapes and figs ripen, but are not common; olives seldom
ripen even partially, and oranges not at all. These fruits, in
corresponding latitudes in Europe, are well known to succeed to
perfection; and even in this continent, at the Rio Negro, under
nearly the same parallel with Valdivia, sweet potatoes
(convolvulus) are cultivated; and grapes, figs, olives, oranges,
water and musk melons, produce abundant fruit. Although the humid
and equable climate of Chiloe, and of the coast northward and
southward of it, is so unfavourable to our fruits, yet the native
forests, from latitude 45 to 38 degrees, almost rival in luxuriance
those of the glowing intertropical regions. Stately trees of many
kinds, with smooth and highly coloured barks, are loaded by
parasitical monocotyledonous plants; large and elegant ferns are
numerous, and arborescent grasses entwine the trees into one
entangled mass to the height of thirty or forty feet above the
ground.
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