“The cultivation of _Erythoxylon Coca_, as carried on in Bolivia in the present day, does not appear to differ from that which prevailed previous to the conquest; and the province of Yungas de la Paz is that which, since the Spanish occupation, seems to have supported the most considerable plantations. All the slopes of the mountains, below an elevation of 2,200 mètres [7,217 feet], are literally covered with them, and the traveller has continually in view the factories or _haciendas_ where the leaf is prepared for the purposes of trade. [Footnote 13: _Pharm. Journ._ 1854, pp. 162-4, 213-5, translated from Dr. Weddell’s “Voyage dans le nord de la Bolivie.” Paris: 1853, 8vo. ch. xxix.] “The _Coca_ shrub is propagated from seed. For this purpose the seeds, immediately after gathering, are scattered on the surface of the light and frequently watered soil of a little nursery (_almaciga_), where they come up generally at the end of ten or fifteen days. The waterings are continued, and should the sun strike the young plants too violently, they are sheltered with mats. “The following year the shrubs, whose height is already from 40 to 50 centimètres [16 to 20 inches] are transplanted into a plot of ground specially prepared for them and called a _cocal_. The arrangement of these plantations is much more complicated than that of an ordinary plantation, and varies according to the inclination of the surface. When the _cocal_ occupies the slope of a mountain, which is the usual case, the cultivator forms a series of narrow steps, each intended for a single row of shrubs, and the more elevated (consequently the less numerous) as the surface is more steep. They are generally supported by little stone walls, which serve not merely to contain the earth and prevent its drying, but also to protect the stem and roots of the young shrubs from the too direct influence of the solar rays, by means of the projection which they form above the level of the soil. “Where the ground is level, they make, instead of steps or terraces, simple furrows (_uachos_) in a straight line, and separated from one another by little walls of well-moulded earth, called _umachas_, at the foot of each of which is planted a row of the shrubs, more or less far apart from each other.