SUCCULENT PLANTS. 189 



that is, ten litres of liquor per day for every 

 Irishman : and suppose he were to grow half-a-dozen 

 Agaves ! 



From the leaves an excellent fibre may be ob- 

 tained for cordage. Agave rigida, the so-called 

 Sissal hemp, is largely cultivated for this purpose in 

 the Bahamas. The industry is said to be a profitable 

 one. The natives of the islands call the plant 

 " Pita." There is also another use to which the 

 Agave is put. The flower stalk, which rises green 

 and tender, like a huge asparagus, becomes quite 

 brown and dry when the flowering is over. In 

 texture it then resembles cork, but it is lighter and 

 softer, more like pith. Cut into boards about a 

 centimetre thick, this substance serves admirably for 

 lining entomological boxes, because the slender pins 

 used for very small insects penetrate it more easily 

 than cork. I took an Agave stem to the saw mill 

 to be cut up (it grew in the beautiful ground of 

 the Torre di Cimella), and I found that boards 

 measuring 15 inches by 3 or 4 cost about a halfpenny 

 apiece. 



The Agave is monocarpic : that is, after flowering 

 once it perishes. Before flowering the great leaves 

 curve inwards as if to protect the bud. There is a 

 popular idea that the Agave flowers only at the age 

 of a hundred years ; but the real time is given as the 

 fifth to the eighteenth year. It is stated that the 

 plant may be compelled to flower by cutting off the 

 leaves : the Agaves slashed by the sabres of the 

 French troops in Algeria are said to have flowered 

 prematurely. 



The Agave is constantly called an Aloe : the 



