naturalized ever since the sixteenth century, throughout Southern 
Europe, in the Canary Islands, and on the African coasts, imparts a 
most peculiar character to the Mexican landscape. What can be more 
strongly contrasted than a field of yellow Wheat, a plantation of the 
glaucous AGAvE, and a grove of Bananas, whose lustrous leaves always 
preserve their own tender and delicate hue of green! Thus does man, 
in all latitudes, by introducing and multiplying the various vegetable 
productions, modify at his pleasure the aspect of the country around him! 
“In the Spanish colonies there are several sorts of Maguay deserving 
of careful cultivation; some indeed, which, by the length of the sta- 
mens, the mode of division of the corolla, and form of the stigma, may, 
perhaps, belong to separate genera. The Maguay or Metl, which is 
grown in Mexico, consists of several varieties of the American Aloe 
(AcavE Americana), so common in gardens, which has yellow, fascicled, 
and straight flowers, with stamens twice as long as the divisions of the 
corolla. This must not be confounded with the A. Cubensis of Jac- 
quin, (A. Mexicana, Lamarck, A. odorata, PErsoon,) which has 
been erroneously supposed to be the Metl or Maguay of Mexico, but 
which is extensively grown in the Caraccas, where it 1s called Maguay 
de Cocuy. 
“ These plantations extend wherever the Aztéque language is spoken; 
they cease to the north of Salamanca, and are seen in the greatest 
luxuriance in the valley of Toluca and the plains of Cholula. There the 
Acave plants are set in rows, distant fifteen decimétres from one 
another. The juice or sap, commonly called the honey, from its abun- 
dant sweetness, is only afforded when the flowering-stem is about to 
appear, so that it is of great importance to the cultivator to ascertain 
precisely this period. Its approach is indicated by the direction of the 
root-leaves, which the Indian always watches and examines with great 
attention, and which, formerly recurved, suddenly take an upward 
direction, and approximate as if to enclose the incipient flower-stalk. 
The bunch of central leaves (corazon, the heart,) next assumes a livelier 
green, and lengthens considerably ; indications which the natives assure 
me hardly ever fail, and to which may be added several other less 
striking appearances in the general aspect of the plant. Daily does the 
cultivator examine his Acave plantations, to watch those individuals 
which promise to bloom, and if he himself entertains any doubt, he 
appeals to the village sages, the old Indians; whose long experience 
gives them an unerring precision both of touch and eye. 
_ “ At eight years old, or thereabouts, the Mexican Acave generally 
shows signs of inflorescence, and then the collection of the juice for 
making Pulque begins. The bunch of central leaves, or corazon, is cut 
through, the incision gradually enlarged and covered by the side leaves, 
which are raised up and tied together at their tips. In this cleft the 
sap of those parts which were destined to form and nourish the gigantic 
flowering-stem is deposited, and this vegetable spring flows for two or 
three months, and may be tapped three times a day. The quantity of 
Sap 1s enormous; and the more surprising, as the Acave plantations 
are always made by choice on the most sterile soil, frequently on mere 
shelves of rock, scantily covered with vegetable earth. Each plant is 
calculated to yield about one hundred and fifty bottles; and at Pachuca, 
the value of a Maguay, near flowering, is from twenty to twenty-five 
ncs, 
