The excellence of the climate, and the looseness of the soil, renders this island extremely proper for all kinds of cultivation:  for, if the ground be any where accidentally turned up, it becomes immediately overgrown with turnips and Sicilian radishes.  Our commodore, therefore, having with him garden-seeds of all kinds, and stones of different kinds of fruits, sowed here lettuces, carrots, and other garden-plants, and set in the woods great numbers of plumb, apricot, and peach-stones, for the better accommodation of our countrymen who might hereafter touch at this island.  These last have since thriven most remarkably, as has been since learnt by Mr Anson.  For some Spanish gentlemen having been taken on their passage from Lima to Spain, and brought to England, having procured leave to wait upon him, to thank him for his generosity and humanity to his prisoners, some of whom were their relations, and foiling into discourse about his transactions in the South Seas, asked if he had not planted a great number of fruit-stones on the island of Juan Fernandez, as their late navigators had discovered there a great many peach and apricot trees, which, being fruits not observed there before, they supposed to have been produced from kernels set by him.

This may suffice in general as to the soil and vegetable productions of Juan Fernandez; but the face of the country, at least of its northern part, is so extremely singular as to require a particular consideration.  I have already noticed the wild and inhospitable appearance of it to us at first sight, and the gradual improvement of its uncouth landscape as we drew nearer, till we were at last captivated by the numerous beauties we discovered on landing.  During our residence, we found the interior to fall no ways short of the sanguine prepossessions we at first entertained.  For the woods, which covered most of even the steepest hills, were free from all bushes and underwood, affording an easy passage through every part of them; and the irregularities of the hills and precipices, in the northern part of the island, traced out, by their various combinations, a great number of romantic vallies, most of which were pervaded by streams of the purest water, which tumbled in beautiful cascades from rock to rock, as the bottoms of the vallies happened to be broken into sudden descents by the course of the neighbouring hills.  Some particular spots occurred in these vallies where the shade and fragrance of the contiguous woods, the loftiness of the overhanging rocks, and the transparency and frequent cascades of the streams, presented scenes of such elegance and dignity, as would with difficulty be rivalled in any other part of the globe.  Here, perhaps, the simple productions of unassisted nature may be said to excel all the fictitious descriptions of the most fertile imagination.