THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 73 



pigs, cats and babies on milk. Have tried them all. But 

 there is 'nothin' doin' ' when it comes to squashes. It is 

 the old idea of fatting watermelons on sweetened water. 

 It won't work. It's all right in stories, but don't go in 

 horticulture." 



When doctors disagree who shall decide ? Will some- 

 one please throw a little light. From any point of view 

 the claim seems to me most astonishing. Ifitisa myth 

 how did it come so wideW and firmly disseminated in the 

 public mind, — colleges of agriculture, botanists, farmers, 

 even school children, everj^body. If it is a fact, why is it 

 that so important a matter has not been fully investi- 

 gated botanically ? Why not made more use of in raising 

 prize specimens for fairs? Why? But echo answers, 

 "why" and again, "why." I await some more tangible 

 reply. 



Stamford, Connecticut. 



THE LARGEST CENTURY PLANT, 



BY O. W. BARRETT. 

 'pHE common century plant of our northern gardens is a 

 -^ degenerated descendent of a wild agave, or "Maguey," 

 as the Mexicans call it. It is a very slow-growing plant 

 and seldom or never flowers under conservatory treat- 

 ment. Throughout the Southwest Mexico and Central 

 America there are many other species which have more or 

 less the same habit as the cultivated sort, and most of 

 which have leaves from three to six feet long and a flower- 

 stalk from ten to thirty feet high. But here in Porto Rico 

 we have the very largest of all the race. Furcroea foetida 

 or Fourcroya gigantea, is probably the tallest erect plant 

 which is neither tree nor shrub nor bamboo ; and of all 

 the 120,000 species of flowering plants it is quite certain 

 that no other possesses a true peduncle forty to fifty feet 

 in length. 



This plant grows wild on hillsides in the poorest of soil 

 and seems to delight in dry and rocky situations where no 

 other plant can live. Its huge clusters of dark green leaves 



