March, 1909.] 



235 



Edible Produoti 



dark-green giant A, atrovirens, though, 

 as with extensively cultivated plants 

 elsewhere, it is grown in numerous hor- 

 ticultural varieties which look much alike 

 to the botanist but are distinguished by 

 the planter. Over thirty such forms are 

 said to be planted in the plaius of Apam. 



As one passes to the colder regions of 

 the north or descends from the table- 

 land into the hot country, still other and 

 different looking species of the same type 

 replace A. atrovirens, which, however, 

 far outnumbers and surpasses them all 

 in its aggregate importance. These plant- 

 ations of A. atrovirens are the basis of 

 the pulque industry of Mexico — at once 

 a large item in its agricultural wealth 

 and one of the greatest curses of its 

 labouring population. 



The present traffic in pulque is large. 

 Something over 5,000,000 barrels of it are 

 used in the Mexican republic every year, 

 of which quantity about halt' is consumed 

 in the capital city, and much of the re- 

 mainder in Puebla and the other lai'ge 

 cities of the central plateau. Cheap as 

 it is (for it sells for from 1 to 3 cents of 

 Mexican money for a large glass), its 

 aggregate value amounts to several 

 million dollars per year. Special trains 

 are run into the city of Mexico every 

 morning for its delivery, as is done with 

 the milk supply of American cities. In 

 the Apam district the plantations are 

 chiefly found on the large haciendas or 

 estates. 



The " pulque maguey" is a large plant, 

 and its rosette of thick leaves, though 

 appearing to lie next the ground, is really 

 spaced along a stout trunk as large as a 

 small barrel. The whole, charged with 

 sap, weighs several tons. If left to itself, 

 as it is in gardens on the Riviera, where 

 it is called A. salmiana, like the century 

 plant Agave americana, it produces a 

 gigantic scape, topped with a candela- 

 brum of flowers, when somewhere in the 

 neighbourhood of fifteen years old. This 

 is never permitted on the large plant- 

 ations, for the plant possesses its maxi- 

 mum value when it has reached vege- 

 tative maturity and the scape is about to 

 develop. At the critical moment, known 

 from the appearance of the central bud, 

 this is cut out, and a shallow cavity is 

 made in the crown of the trunk, which 

 is covered by a stone, pieces of maguey 

 leaves, or other protection. Into the 

 cavity so formed the sap exudes. 



It is removed two or three times a day, 

 the surface being scraped and the cavity 

 slightly enlarged each time, until at 

 last nothing but a thin shell of the trunk 

 remains, the leaves meantime having 

 given up their content of fluid and dried 

 to their hard framework — as happens 

 naturally during the flowering period of 



all the larger agaves, when the reserve 

 of sap is drawn into the rapidly growing 

 scape and flowers. 



For a period of three months or more a 

 good plant yields a gallon or two of sap 

 daily, and its total value may be not far 

 from 10 dollars on an average, from 

 which it will be seen that a large maguey 

 plantation represents a considerable item 

 in the assests of a landed proprietor of 

 the plains of Apam. 



The fluid which collects in the hollow- 

 ed trunk of a cut maguey plant, and is 

 gathered in the manner described, is 

 called " agua miel, " or honey- water, be- 

 cause of its sweetness ; 9 or 10 per cent, 

 of its weight is sugar, and this furnishes 

 the basis for the alcoholic fermentation 

 which is the chief factor in its con- 

 version into pulque. The "agua miel" 

 of the Apam district is thin, clear, 

 and colourless, and possesses a rather 

 pleasant taste. 



The fermentation practices in pulque 

 making are still mostly primitive. I 

 have had a Mexican gentleman tell me 

 that, although when the agua miel was 

 gathered and fermented with due clean- 

 liness lie considered it a delicious drink, 

 he would not think of touching pulque 

 as offered, for instance, at the railway 

 station at Apam. The vats used in the 

 fermentation are of ox-hide stretched on 

 frames, and they are usually 3 or 4 ft, 

 wide and nearly as deep. Fermentation 

 is begun by the introduction of a starter 

 or "mother of pulque," obtained by 

 perliminary fermentation, and is car- 

 ried on either without, or at most with 

 little, artificial control of temperature, 

 and under conditions of positive or nega- 

 tive eleanlinesss which differ with the 

 various haciendas, 



When marketed, the pulque is a Avhite, 

 decidedly viscous fluid containing about 

 8 per cent, of alcohol ; fermeutation has 

 not been solely alcoholic, however, and 

 its flavour is in part due to changes 

 wrought by bacteria of several kinds 

 which are introduced with the starter in 

 company with the yeast. Continuation 

 of the action of these collateral ferments 

 causes the beverage to spoil in a day or 

 two under ordinary conditions. 



Where the maguey, though capable of 

 cultivation, yields a lesser or inferior 

 product, agua miel is often more appreci- 

 ated in its unfermented state. As hawk- 

 ed around the streets of Monterey, for 

 instance, in porous earthenware recep- 

 tacles, it is a cool, yellowish fluid, that is 

 very refreshing on a hot day, and the 

 limpid, yellowish, cidery, foamy product 

 of its fermeutation in the north is fre- 

 quently more to the taste of the foreigner 



