68 



CASWELL'S POPULAR GARDEXING. 



excluded. Agaves have a special claim on small 

 amateurs, whose business pursuits leave them but 

 little leisure to attend to plants, for as the leaves are 

 thick and fleshy, they do not feel the want of water or 

 the sudden change of temperature in the manner that 

 ■other plants would, consequently they may he left to 



specting Agaves, \'iz., "that they flower only onie 

 in a century." This may he accepted as truth, hut it 

 must not he assumed that it takes a hundred years 

 for them to an-ive at a flowering state, although they 

 are extremely loiig-lived, and instances arc recorded 

 of plants of the larger kinds being a century in ciil- 



Agave Amekicana. 



care for themselves with greater im]>unity. Although 

 the large-growing species, A. Americana, is quoted 

 as the representatiA'e of this genus, those which are 

 limited to space can be easily accommodated, for the 

 family is a very large one, and some of the smaller- 

 growing kinds form exquisite specimens, never ex- 

 ceeding one foot in diameter, or even less. 



A few words must be devoted to the old saying re- 



tivation without producing flowers. But when they 

 do bloom, the spike springs fi^om the crown of the 

 plant, and, after seeds are perfected, death ensues ; so 

 that the plant onlj- flowers once in its life, and it 

 would be equally true to say that it flowers only 

 once in a thousand years. This latter statement, 

 however, requires a little explanation, inasmuch as 

 it is open to contradiction. The genus Agave belongs 



