*24
[Footnote 24: Acosta, lib. 4, cap. 36. - Garcilasso, Com. Real.,
Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 3.]
With this advancement in agricultural science, the Peruvians
might be supposed to have had some knowledge of the plough, in
such general use among the primitive nations of the eastern
continent. But they had neither the iron ploughshare of the Old
World, nor had they animals for draught, which, indeed, were
nowhere found in the New. The instrument which they used was a
strong, sharp-pointed stake, traversed by a horizontal piece, ten
or twelve inches from the point, on which the ploughman might set
his foot and force it into the ground. Six or eight strong men
were attached by ropes to the stake, and dragged it forcibly
along, - pulling together, and keeping time as they moved by
chanting their national songs, in which they were accompanied by
the women who followed in their train, to break up the sods with
their rakes. The mellow soil offered slight resistance; and the
laborer, by long practice, acquired a dexterity which enabled him
to turn up the ground to the requisite depth with astonishing
facility. This substitute for the plough was but a clumsy
contrivance; yet it is curious as the only specimen of the kind
among the American aborigines, and was perhaps not much inferior
to the wooden instrument introduced in its stead by the European
conquerors. *25
[Footnote 25: Ibid., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 2.]
It was frequently the policy of the Incas, after providing a
deserted tract with the means for irrigation, and thus fitting it
for the labors of the husbandman, to transplant there a colony of
mitimaes, who brought it under cultivation by raising the crops
best suited to the soil.
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