7 
cultivation essentially consists in appropriate irrigation, which 
goes far to counterbalance the sterility of the soil.” 
The following are extracts selected from among Dr. 
Perrine's reports :— 
** The Agave Americana is still called by travellers the 
American aloe; and Doctor Mease, with them, has been 
misled to suppose that this plant produces the Sisal hemp, 
and the Pita a much finer material: but the Agave Ameri- 
cana is dedicated to a very different production—the cele- 
brated drink called * Pu/que, derived from the sap of its 
stem ; and hence Maguey de Pulque is its common name in 
Mexico. A direct tax on the consumption of this beverage 
forms an important item in the revenue of that country. 
‘The entry duties paid in the three cities of Mexico, Tolusa, 
and Puebla, amounted, in 1793, to the sum of 817,739 
piastres.’ Humboldt was correct in affirming of the Maguey 
de Pulque, ‘ that its cultivation has real advantages over the 
cultivation of maize, grain, and potatoes; that it is neither 
affected by drought nor hail, nor the excessive cold which 
prevails in winter on the higher cordilleras of Mexico; that 
it grows in the most arid grounds, and frequently on banks 
of rocks hardly covered with vegetable earth ; and that it is 
one of the most useful of all the productions with which 
nature has supplied the mountaineers of equinoctial America.’ 
But it is not true that the same plant produces the very fine, 
very strong, and very long fibres, known by the name of 
Pita, from which the most beautiful sewing thread is made; 
nor does it furnish those coarser fibres for twine and cordage,, 
resembling Manilla, but denominated Sisal hemp. If tropical 
hemp be an admissible term for the latter, the former may be 
honoured with the distinction of tropical flax. The Iztla, 
whose thin leaves afford the pita, grows wild in the shade of 
the fertile forests of Tabasco. The Sosquil 6 Henequin, whose 
thick leaves yield the Sisal hemp, is cultivated in the sun of 
the sterile plains of Yucatan. The stem of neither supplies 
the drink which constitutes the principal value of the Agave 
Americana ; nevertheless, a variety of the Maguey de Pulque 
does grow on the tropical shores of the Gulf of Mexico, from 
which the highland soldiers have occasionally extracted their 
favourite beverage. Some of the cultivated Magueys 
brought from a plantation on the mountains to the garden of 
a gentleman in Campeachy, are there flourishing, notwith- 
