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New plants are formed around the base of the old one in 
the form of suckers. It furnishes a variety of products; 
the plants form impenetrable fences; the leaves furnish 
fibers of various qualities, from that used in the finest 
thread to that in the strongest rope cables; the juice, 
when the watery part is evaporated, forms a good soap, 
and will mix and form a lather with salt water as 
well as fresh; a very intoxicating drink is also made 
from the juice, as weil as other preparations of a similar 
nature; the leaves are made into razor strops, and are 
also used in scouring all sorts of culinary utensils. 
CACTI. 
Ati HE Cactus family contains many of the most singular 
= and grotesque productions of the vegetable world. 
The flowers of many of the species are the most gorgeous; 
of others, the”most delicate and beautiful known to 
botanists. Of distinct and striking forms there is noend — 
in this strange family. The Cereus Tuberosus has slen- 
der, graceful stems, hardly half an inch in diameter, 
while the Cereus Giganteus towers to the height of fifty - 
feet, a gaunt, wierd column two feet in diameter, rising 
like a giant telegraph pole out of the sands of the Mexi- 
can desert. The pretty little Mamillaria Micromeris is a 
top-shaped plant, three-quarters,of an inch in height 
and half an inch in diameter, covered with a delicate 
lace-work that might have been woven by fairy fingers, 
while the Echinocactus Lecontei thrusts its sturdy form 
from out the crevices of rocks, a solid globe more than 
three feet in diameter, armed with stout, forbidding 
thorns several inches in length. Nearly all the species 
are found in exposed situations in a country where not a 
drop of rain falls for months at a time; hence, in cultiva- 
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