ALOE. 9 



report of a cannon, are equally without foundation. The 

 fact is, that the time which this plant takes to come to per- 

 fection varies with the climate. In hot countries, where 

 they grow fast, and expand many leaves every season, they 

 will flower in a few years ; but in colder climates, where 

 their growth is slow, they will be much longer in arriving at 

 perfection. The leaves of the American Aloe are five or six 

 feet long, from six to nine inches broad, and three or four 

 thick*/' 



Millar mentions one of these plants in the garden of 

 the King of Prussia, that was forty feet high ; another in 

 the royal garden at Friedricksberg in Denmark, two-and- 

 twenty feet high, which had nineteen branches, bearing 

 four thousand flowers ; and a third in the botanic garden 

 at Cambridge, which, at sixty years of age, had never 

 borne flowers. He specifies some others, remarkable for 

 the number of their flowers, but does not mention the age 

 of any one at the time of flowering. 



" With us,*" says Rousseau, " the term of its life is un- 

 certain; and after having flowered, it produces a number 

 of offsets, and dies." 



A kind of soap is prepared from the leaves of this Aloe, 

 and the leaves themselves are used for scouring floors, 

 pewter, &c. ; and their epidermis is serviceable to literature 

 as a material for writing upon. The following extract from 

 Wood's Zoography will give some idea of the general utility 

 of this extraordinary plant : 



" The Mahometans respect the Aloe as a plant of a su- 

 perior nature. In Egypt it may be said to bear some share 

 in their religious ceremonies ; since whoever returns from 

 a pilgrimage to Mecca hangs it over his street-door as a 

 proof of his having performed that holy journey. The 



* Wood's Zoography, vol. iii. 



