ApktL tg, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



i?3 



October and the rapid drying up of the country and swift ripen- 

 ing of the vegetation that follows, autumn comes quickly in. 

 It is a golden and flowery autumn, and it lasts unchanged 

 throughout all the winter months of the calendar — every day 

 the same luminous sunlight suffusing the landscape, the same 

 serene skies, the same clear air, always by day a genial warmth 

 without, always trees and shrubs and perennial herbs to be 

 found in flower. 



Amid the delights of such a climate have I lived and worked, 

 tramping over plains or climbing mountains in August witli- 

 out knowing discomfort from heat, and making my bed on 

 the earth under the open sky in December without suffering 

 cold, the while my northern friends have been commiserating 

 me upon spending my summers in the torrid zone, or upon 

 my lingering in the field after winter had set in. 



Since reporting to Garden and Forest on the forest- 

 Hora of Nuevo Leon, I ha^e kept my base chiefly in the city 

 of San Luis Potosi. No city was more renowned than this in 

 the days of Spanish occupation and treasure-hunting. Charles 

 v.. Emperor of the Indies, as well as King of Spain, bestowed 

 upon it the name Potosi, The Rich and Wonderful, in ac- 

 knowledgment of plates of silver from its mines. And Scott 

 sings, in his " Vision of Don Roderick," of "ingots of ore from 

 rich Potosi borne." Ages ago her mines were lost beneath a 

 subsidence of the mountain ; but compensation returns to 

 San Luis to-day, when she is selected, as is fitting, for the 

 location of an immense smelter, to be fed witli ore from mines 

 of states far and near. 



Here, at San Luis, intersect the two principal railroad lines 

 of the country, the Mexican Central and the Mexican National ; 

 and by the courtesy of these roads I was enabled to make trips 

 in several directions into neighboring states and thus to cover 

 much ground. A district could be revisited for a week or a 

 month at favorable seasons ; and detriment from drought or 

 other causes could be avoided by a change of field. In San 

 Luis, if anywhere, could be found sunshine and a dry atmos- 

 phere for drying off my collections and for safely storing 

 them. 



The city of San Luis Potosi is situated on a plain in the dry 

 interior of the plateau, and at an elevation of 6,000 feet above 

 sea-level. Its parks and suburban gardens are shaded almost 

 solely by the Mexican Ash and the Pepper-tree, Schinus 

 moUe. All about the outskirts of the city we see. where the 

 gray adobe garden walls end, the Organ Cactus, with its erect, 

 dark green stems, fifteen feet high, planted in close lines for 

 a garden-barrier. Within the gardens, liuge, awkward plants 

 of the Prickly Pear crowd upon the Apples, Pears, Peaches, 

 Quinces, Pomegranates and other fruit-trees. Spreading Grape- 

 vines, with luxuriant Morning Glories, make shade about the 

 houses. Around the doors, in garden-beds and in pots, grow 

 old-fashioned flowers. Beyond the patches of Onions, of Let- 

 tuce, of Cabbages, and of Peppers, are always the ampler plats 

 of Alfalfa, set in regular lines. Excepting the Cactuses, all 

 growths within these gardens are dependent upon irrigation — 

 therefor the well, centrally located, and the two tall well- 

 sweeps, bending over it, side by side. Before the well, 

 throughout the warm, dreamy summer days, two men stand, 

 side by side, theirswarthy bodies naked to the waist. We see 

 their rapid, dexterous motions as they bend to their toil, and 

 hear the monotonous creaking of the sweeps and the swash 

 of the water as it falls into the irrigating channels from their 

 buckets. 



Beyond the gardens, sometimes alternating with them, be- 

 gin the plantations of the Maguey, Agave Americana, whose 

 juice, either in the fresh state, as pulque, or distilled, as mes- 

 cal, constitutes the chief drink of the people. On both sides 

 of the narrow lanes running back into the country, ditches are 

 dug, the earth being thrown upon the edge of the fields. On 

 the bank thus formed a closely set line of Maguey-plants makes 

 a most effectual cheval de frise. Within the fields the plants 

 are set in squares, eight to twelve feet apart. The regularity 

 with which the plants are arranged, and their bluish green 

 color, make a plantation of Magueys a unique spectacle. But 

 it soon becomes a familiar sight as we travel southward from 

 San Luis and find much of the best land, plain, valley and hill-side, 

 quite to the limits of the table-land, devoted to this crop. And 

 familiar, too, becomes tlie sight of the pulque gatherer, suck- 

 ing the juice from the excavation in the crown of the plant by 

 means of a long, tapering gourd, and from that transferring it 

 to a pig-skin sack, carried on his back by means of a strap 

 passed over his forehead. 



Owing to its location in the arid region, San Luis Potosi is 

 the centre of Prickly Pear growing, and the chief point of ship- 

 ment of this important fruit. Large areas of mesa land, some- 

 what elevated it may be and rocky, are covered with the gro- 



tesque forms of this plant ten to twenty feet high. From July 

 until December, in the streets of the city, piles of the fruit 

 under awnings, and booths of sacking and mats are exposed 

 for sale by the poorer class. Besides wild species of poor 

 quality, there are of the planted species, Opuntia Ficus-Indi- 

 cus, several varieties, all named, varying in size, form and 

 color. Their colors are various shades of green, yellow and 

 purple. Until I came to San Luis to live, I supposed the tuna 

 a plebeian fruit; but here I found that some of the sorts are 

 delicious and refreshing, well adapted to our needs in so dry a 

 climate. It is a fact that upon this plant hangs the existence 

 of the lowest class and of their animals. Thougii the rain fail 

 to come year after year, the tuna crop is never lacking. The 

 younger joints of the stem also serve as food for the people, 

 when cooked, and almost any part is eaten with avidity bv 

 donkeysand cattle, especially after the spines have beensinge'l 

 off by fire. 



Beyond the Maguey fields and Tuna fields rises, a few miles 

 to the west of San Luis, a low range of mountains butscantil) 

 wooded ; and some fifteen miles to the south-west is a loftier 

 group, rugged in the extreme with crags and pinnacles and 

 box cafions. Inasmuch as these mountains were the favorite 

 tramping-ground of Dr. Schaffner, who lived in San Luis some 

 years ago, and whose grave is there, and as Drs. Parry and 

 Palmer, also, in 1878, worked this region, I chose to give my 

 attention to other districts. 



My chief object in locating in San Luis in the spring of 1890 

 was to work the country between that point and Tampico, on 

 the Gulf of Mexico, a region then just opened to travel by the 

 completion of a branch of the Mexican Central. The distance 

 by railroad from San Luis to Tampico is 275 miles. The de- 

 scent from the city to the sea is constant, passing down suc- 

 cessive benches of the verge of the plateau. Mountain-ranges 

 intervene, but no point on the line is so high as the city on the 

 plain. This comparatively short run takes us through regions 

 of remarkably diverse character. Of course, the vegetation 

 changes with the elevation, soil and climate. 



These regions I explored with one faithful and hardy assist- 

 ant through many weeks of two summers, having San Luis as 

 our base, and making free use of the friendly train. Carrying 

 with us our supplies for the trip, we alighted at some promis- 

 ing point, walked sometimes from station to station, often 

 pushed back from the railroad as far as practicable, lay down 

 in our mackintoshes to sleep where night overtook us, some- 

 times in a cave or railroad-tunnel, but oftener in the open, not 

 rarely in the rain, sometimes on a shelf of a dizzy mountain- 

 side, sometimes on an alkaline desert, and sometimes, fortu- 

 nately, under a sheltering tree. Wherever we traveled, and 

 we explored the entire line, we met with as many strange 

 plants as we could manage. When we had collected heavy 

 loads of these, fatigued with toil in the heat of the lowlands 

 and wet with their daily rains, we welcomed the returning 

 train, and rode back to San Luis by night to dry out there our 

 collections. In no other way could those difficult regions be 

 successfully worked. The botanical interest which attaches 

 to them is attested by the discovery of more than seventy new 

 species there, of which five are arborescent. ^ ^ „ • 



Charlotte, Vt. L. G. Pritlgle. 



Maple-sugar: How the Quality Varies. — III. 



I HAVE said that Maple-trees vary much in the quality and 

 quantity of the sap they yield. When New England was a 

 wilderness — uncleared — about one to one and a half per cent, 

 of sugar was found in the sap, so that two pails, or thirty-two 

 quarts of sap, yielded a pound of sugar, while now, with our 

 lands so cleared up and the trees scattered, we have on an 

 average three and a half per cent, of sugar in the sap, sixteen 

 quarts of which make a pound of sugar. In my early expe- 

 rience in sugaring, sap would start out with a stream, while 

 nowadays this rarely occurs. The sap then was thin and 

 watery, while now it is more dense with sugar. 



Trees on high lands yield a better sugar than those on low 

 lands. Trees standing on low lands, in soil which is moist, 

 dark and mucky, will give much sap, but it will be poor in 

 quality, and the sugar and syrup made from it will be dark in 

 color and scant in quantity. The richer the soil is naturally 

 the darker are the products. The poorer the soil is naturally 

 the whiter and purer are the syrup and sugar. 



For the benefit of those unacquainted with sugar-making, 

 and especially those living in cities, it should be said that the 

 lighter the color of the sugar the more pure it is. This is also 

 true of syrup. From a chemical standpoint maple-sugar is a 

 clear white, like pure cane-sugar. The chemist, in his labora- 

 tory, can detect no difference between pure maple and cane- 



