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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



as indispensable to the field student of these plants as the trowel or 

 drying press, and the data used by whoever may succeed in adequately 

 monographing the agaves will necessarily include habit pictures and 

 full-size details, photographed on the spot. 



Anything which takes one into the pure air and bright sunshine of 

 the mountains brings in the enjoyment of these a full compensation 

 for the inseparable hardships of travel in a sparsely settled country 

 where the comforts of life are not to be looked for outside of the 

 larger cities, and where one frequently goes to bed literally with the 

 chickens or is stabled in the barnyard. 



The agaves are preeminently plants of rocky places. Some of them 

 delight in hanging from the sides of cliffs which are all but inacces- 

 sible. Others grow in the middle of the great fields of broken ragged 

 lava to which the Mexicans have applied the expressive name ' malpays ' 

 or bad lands. Collecting under such conditions is scarcely capable of 

 description without the unimpeachable evidence of the phonograph, 

 which is not yet generally recognized as a necessary part of the bot- 

 anist's equipment. I regret that while I have been able to show pic- 

 tures giving some idea of the obstacles to travel in the barrancas and 

 lava beds, of the altogether tantalizing places in which choice plants 

 are seen, and of the difficulties attending the transportation of those 

 that can be reached, I have no phonographic record fit for public 

 demonstration. 



Fig. 22. Where Choice Plants are seen. 



