The agriculture of the country has never been of a high order, though the Aztecs, at the time of the Spanish invasion, were an agricultural people, and about as well acquainted with the arts and processes of husbandry as most nations of the East were at that day. Having incorporated in their communities the shattered remains of the old Tolteck tribes they had acquired considerable civilization, and were not, as the invaders supposed, rude nomads, or even herdsmen, but cultivators of the soil, and fixed in the possession of their estates. Theirs was not a skillful husbandry, since necessity, mother of inventions, had not greatly improved either their methods or their instruments. They had no plows, harrows, or cultivators, but used hoes, knives, and sickles made of copper. In planting, the earth was loosened with a hoe or stick, and the seed, when dropped, covered with the foot. The present state of agriculture, though much improved, is still very inferior, and the production, reported in the last census, $177,451,985, might, from the same areas, be greatly increased. Before the recent advent of railroads those far in the interior had no adequate means for exporting the excess of their products, and little inducement to raise more than they needed to consume. Mexican forests furnish in abundance nearly, if not all, the useful timber trees of the north, and those valuable woods that grow only in the tropics. Some sixty varieties used for timber are mentioned, and twenty suitable for the finest style of interior finishing and furnishing.