On the Commerce of Mexico. 387 
the root. As tothe extent of the lands appropriated to 
the culture of the plant, the writers in question give scanty 
information, but still sufficient to show that it was culti- 
vated on an extensive scale in the States of Tollan, of 
Texcoco, and Mexico, as well as in the independent Re- 
publics of Tlaxcala, Tluexcingo, and Cholula, and other 
districts of the Valleys of Puebla and Mexico, where the 
vassals paid a great part of their tribute-money in clothes 
and sandals made of “ixtli” or maguey fibre, and it is 
worthy of observation that the above-mentioned districts 
were the most thickly populated of the ancient Mexican 
territory, which is stated, perhaps somewhat vaguely, by 
the old Spanish writers, to have contained more than 
30,000,000 inhabitants. 
_ Dr. Hernandez,a botanist, whowas sent to make researches. 
in Mexico by Philip I]. in the year 1570, makes mention 
of ten different species of the maguey plant as existing 
within the Mexican territory, assigning to each, under their 
Indian names of Metl Coztl, Mexcalmetl, Mexocatl, Ne- 
quametl, Tepemexcalli, Tlacametl, Teometl, Pati, Quet- 
zalichtle, and Kalometl, some peculiar medicinal pro- 
perties or domestic uses; whilst ancient tradition, as well 
as the assertions of such of the rural population as are 
employed in this branch of agriculture, testifies to the 
existence of thirty different varieties of the plant in the 
chief maguey-producing district of the Plains of Apam 
(Llanos de Apam) alone, which district is situated in the 
States of Mexico, Puebla, and Tlaxcala. 
The maguey plant may be cultivated to a height of 
10,000 feet above the level of the sea, but is cultivated 
with greater success at a somewhat lower elevation, about 
9,000 feet, but ceases altogether to grow at 5,800 feet. It 
requires an average temperature of 15° (Reaumur), and 
flourishes from that to 26°, the most favourable quantity of 
humidity in the air being about 35° to 50° of De Saussure’s 
hygrometer in dry weather. For the complete develop- 
ment of its flowers it requires about 62 degrees of heat 
(centigrade) as a diurnal maximum. The juice of the 
plant is the least mucilaginous in a somewhat clayey soil, 
but, if the soil be too dry, so many mucilaginous particles 
are secreted in the juice that an inferior kind of pulque, 
called “ ilachique,” can alone be manufactured from it. 
Whilst the maguey plant is grown in the Valley of 
Mexico itself, in that of Toluca, in that of Puebla, in that 
of Texcoco, in Pachuca, in many districts of the States of 
