234 PLANTING OF THE ALOE. 



long experience may be safely trusted. The central 

 leaves are then cut with a sharp instrument, and 

 the opening is insensibly enlarged, while above it 

 the lateral leaves are made to bend like a canopy, 

 by drawing them together at the extremities. Into 

 the opening thus made, the sap vessels throw 

 all the juice that would otherwise have circulated 

 throughout the magnificent column and its superb 

 embellishments, and thus is a vegetable fountain 

 opened, which keeps running for some months, and 

 from which the Indian draws a pleasant and nutri- 

 tious liquor, at least three or four times a day. Each 

 plant yields commonly, on an average, nearly eight 

 pints in twenty-four hours, of which three are 

 obtained at sunrise, two at mid- day, and three at 

 six in the evening. A vigorous plant has been 

 even known to yield about seven quarts, or four 

 hundred and fifty-four cubic inches per day, during 

 four or five months, which amounts to the enor- 

 mous quantity of sixty-seven thousand, one hun- 

 dred and thirty cubic inches, supplied by a plant 

 scarcely five feet high. The juice is collected into 

 skins, similar to the ancient bottles mentioned in 

 Holy Writ, which being strung at the end of a long 

 pole, are carried early in the morning from house 

 to house, by men who are hired for the purpose, 

 and whose daily visits are welcome as those of the 

 milkmen in London. 



The agaves are raised from offsets, which are 

 annually renewed, and thus a constant succession is 

 kept up. The appearance of the agave in its dif- 

 ferent stages of growth is very pleasing. One large 

 field contains the offsets neatly planted in rows, 



