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• 43 All this land is extremely fertile, yielding in great abundance from whatever seeds are planted. There are corn, wheat, beans, lentils, chickpeas, lima beans, sweet peas, squashes and pumpkins, watermelons , cantaloupes, and cucumbers. All kinds of green vegetables, cabbages ,lettuces,carrots,thistles,garlic, onions, prickly pear cacti, nightblooming cereus, excellent plums, apricots, peaches, walnuts,1 acorns, mulberries, and many other crops, which I won’t mention to keep from being tedious, are grown. But I would like to describe separately the piñón trees, which are of a different species than those of Spain. The nuts are large and easy to crack, and the trees and their cones are small. And the quantity of nuts is 22. TheFertility of theLand The piñón tree, Pinus edulis. Photo by Baker H. Morrow. 44 • Chapter 22 so great that it seems endless; a fanega of these is worth twenty-three or twenty-four pesos in Mexico City. People who customarily sell them earn a lot. So fertile is the land that a person can reap a hundred-twenty to a hundred-thirty fanegas of wheat for each fanega seeded. And it has happened that very good harvests of wheat have come from the stubble of the previous year, with no more effort than a little watering. Arizona walnut, Juglans major. Photo by Baker H. Morrow. ...

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