2IO 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Fig 2. Agave Picta. 



Elsewhere about the same city, in company with a full dozen other 

 distinguishable agaves, is an abundance of the beautiful little white- 

 leaved plant, now popular in gar- 

 dens, which was named A. Ver- 

 scliajfeltii after its importer, some 

 forty years ago. 



Even in Mexico it is the 

 planted rather than the wild 

 agaves that attract attention. 

 Hedgerows or dooryard specimens 

 of them are found everywhere, and 

 in the region to the south of the 

 City of Mexico ■ there are many 

 miles of territory seemingly de- 

 voted entirely to their cultivation. 

 Phalanx after phalanx of them 

 stretches away to the horizon as the 

 train speeds through, with hardly 

 a sign of other vegetation except 

 for a cottonwood or pepper tree 

 now and then where water happens 

 to occur, or a cypress marking 

 the resting place of the dead. Through this district, centering about 

 the little town of Apam, it is almost exclusively the dark green giant, 

 A. atrovirens, which is grown, 

 though, as with extensively culti- 

 vated plants elsewhere, in nu- 

 merous horticultural varieties 

 which look much alike to the bot- 

 anist but are distinguished by the 

 planter. Over thirty such forms 

 are said to be planted in the 

 plains of Apam. In the imme- 

 diate suburbs of the capital city, 

 about Tacubaya, and locally else- 

 where in this central district, other 

 forms, differing even to the un- 

 specialized eye, are similarly grown 

 in quantity. As one passes to the 

 colder regions of the north or de- 

 scends from the table-land into the 

 hot country, still other and dif- 

 ferent looking species of the same 



type replace A. atrovirens, which, however, far outnumbers and sur- 

 passes them all in its aggregate farm importance. These plantations 



Fig. 3. Dockyard Specimens. 



