648 Plants Used by Indians of the United States. (October, 
` of the plants of this species, then heat stones, upon which the 
hearts are laid, the youngest leaves are next placed on, then 
weeds or grass, and finally, a coating of earth over all. This kiln 
remains three days, or until the contents are cooked, then it is 
uncovered. The hearts are either consumed as food immediately, 
or pounded fine, and pressed into flat, long, irregular-shaped 
cakes, about ten inches wide and fifteen long. They have a 
pleasant sweet taste, but the dirty black color might be objec- 
tionable to some. It is very nutritious, and the Indians of Utah 
become quite fat while living upon it. The tender inner leaves 
baked with the hearts are pounded and pressed by the hands into 
flat cakes, but are not so sweet or palatable as the hearts, and are 
full of fibres of a brown color. Its fibreus nature adapts these 
cakes for transportation. Indians in traveling or hunting, carry 
them tucked under their belts, and take off pieces as they go 
along to chew, spitting out the fibre or use it for gun wads. The 
hearts of all the Agaves when roasted yield this palatable kind of 
food. 
A. deserti—This is on the whole one of the most useful of 
natural productions to the Arizona, New Mexican and Lower 
California Indians, The heart of the plant after being roasted is 
a nutritious article of diet ; from it is distilled a strong liquid called 
mescal by Mexicans; the seeds are ground into flour and eaten ; 
the leaves are long and very fibrous and are cleaned like those of 
Yucca baccata. Sometimes after the leaves are dead and quite 
dry they are pounded until the epidermis is separated. The fibre 
thus cleaned is not so smooth and white as that soaked first in 
water, but very strong and durable ropes, mats, nets and sewing 
thread are made therefrom. This is a very abundant plant, cover- 
ing many thousands of acres of land, unfit to grow anything 
more useful. A plant that contains so much fibre, surpassing in 
length and strength many other fibres in use for cordage and for 
paper, must some day be cultivated on the desert wastes of the 
United States. 
= A. shawii, one of the finest garden plants, but the fibre is 
only suitable for paper, being short. The Indians are very fond 
of a sweet honey-like nectar found in the base of its flowers; in 
-~ fact it tastes like honey and water. It is only found near San 
Diego, California. 
: Willow ‘trees Those along the Colorado river, Arizona, yield 
