THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Fig. 2. Grown for PuLguB. 



the best and the worst — rather than ordinary or average things which 

 attract human interest. The present very short communicaion may be 

 called a vest-pocket accouat of the vest-pocket edition of the century 

 plant. The use of this name, however, is not quite accurate, for the 

 century plant properly is that large Agave, standing as the type of its 

 genus, which was introduced into Europe not so very long after the 

 discovery of the new world by Columbus, which has now become 

 thoroughly naturalized about the Mediterranean, and which in northern 



Fio. 3. Thick as a Man's Body. 



