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->^^ QEOROE W. YOKK, Editor. ^«<- 



39th YEAR, 



CHICAGO, ILL, MAY 18, 1899, 



No, 20, 



Agave Americana, op Century Plant. 



BY W. A. PRYAL. 



A HONEY -PRODUCING plant should yield a crop of 

 hone)' every year after it has once reacht its period. of 

 blooming-. Then it should not be one that the bee- 

 keeper should have to wait a century be- 

 fore he sees it yield its crop of honey. I 

 am afraid there are very few apiarists in 

 this world that would care to plant for a 

 crop for nectar that they would be likely 

 to harvest when they were ready to be 

 g-athered themselves in that vast crop that 

 death stores away each j'ear with more or 

 less pains. Of course, no one knows a 

 bee-keeper who ever sowed the seed of a 

 plant that he had to wait a century before 

 his bees gathered honey from the blos- 

 soms of said plants. 



Herewith is presented a very nice pic- 

 ture of a century plant. Who has not 

 heard of this plant ? Those who have not 

 seen it. have come to believe that it is a 

 wonderful part of the vegetable creation. 

 It may be. but I have never lookt upon it 

 with so much wonderment. Perhaps this 

 is owing mainly to the fact that I have 

 been familiar with it almost as long as I 

 can remember. Still, there are a few feat- 

 ures about this plant that takes it out of 

 the ordinary run of plants we are wont to 

 meet in our daily intercourse with plant- 

 life. In warm climates it makes a rapid 

 growth, that is, it seems rapid, for its 

 leaves become quite long and succulent, 

 and sometimes numerous. They are great, 

 lubberly-looking leaves, and remind one 

 for all the world of whale-bone just as it 

 is brought from off the whaling ships, tho 

 they are of a greenish-gray color, and 

 their edges barbed with vicious hooks or 

 thorns that are curved toward the trunk 

 of the plant, thus being able to catch or 

 wound anything that comes within their 

 reach. Then, the end of the leaf has a 

 sharp-pointed spike or thorn that is so 

 hard that a keen-edg-ed knife will cut it 

 only with difficulty. I have heard that in 

 some places butcher-birds impale their 

 prey on these points, and often every leaf 

 will have its end •" ornamented " with a 



grasshopper, butterfly, or some other insect. * * * But I am 

 to tell of the plant as a honey-producer. In doing- this let 

 it be understood that I am not going to advocate the plant- 

 ing- of agaves by the apiarist as an addition to his bee-flora. 

 Should he live in a climate as mild or warmer than that of 

 California, he may set out a few for ornament or curiosity, 

 or both. In time, and it won't be a century, as many have 

 been led to suppose by the misnaming of the plant, it will 

 bloom and he will see his bees swarm on the flowers as he 

 never before saw bees crowd upon a flower to extract the 

 nectar therefrom. 



For years I had noticed bees working upon these flowers, 

 but as the flowers were always so high from the ground, I 

 did not have a chance until a year ago of observing the 

 amount of nectar a .single flower yielded. In from 8 to 12 

 years one of these plants will beg-in to show signs of getting 

 ready to flower. After blooming the plant 

 dies, tho it has made provision for contin- 

 uing its species by numerous suckers. Its 

 asparagus-like stem or scape will then 

 push its way from out the sheathing of 

 the last leaves the original plant will pro- 

 duce, and rapidly rear its tip sk^'ward. 

 Tho I have never measured a day's growth 

 of one of these trunks, I verily do believe 

 that it is no uncommon thing for them to 

 grow over a foot in 24 hours. In a few- 

 weeks the plant will present the appear- 

 ance of the one in the eng-raving shown 

 here, and possibly be 25. or 30 feet tall. 



It was while one of these trunks was 

 making- giant strides upward on ourplace, 

 that its weight was carried out of the per- 

 pendicular, and its roots were unable to 

 hold it upright, so it came toppling to the 

 earth. Yet, while the main portion of the 

 trunk remained in a recumbent position, 

 the portion that was to bear the flowers 

 raised itself erect. Thus I was enabled to 

 study the flowers at close range. It was 

 delig-htful to see bees pile over each other 

 to get at the nectar. And such quantities 

 of the fluid 1 I never saw anything- like 

 it before, nor do I expect to again, unless 

 I look into more flowers of the century 

 plant. 



The flowers are anything but pretty ; 

 they are of a nasty yellow color ; a half- 

 inch or more across and about one-and-a- 

 half inches deep, sometimes more. They 

 always maintain a vertical position, so 

 -.-, ^^. ;i , lAiw that the nectar does not run out of the 



^M^'^^si flower-chalice. I was able to make a pho- 



r*R^.w^?a tog-raph of a cluster of the flowers. With 



a glass syringe, such as is used to charge 

 a fountain-pen, I have taken sufficient 

 nectar from three or four flowers to fill a 

 dram-phile : this at one time. 



The nectar was as clear as water. I 

 set a small bottle of it in my room. In a 

 few days thereafter, on examining it, I 



