tugal and Spain, so as to give a tropical appearance to European scenery. Like most plants which grow 
in very hot and dry places, the rind or epidermis of the leaves resists powerfully the action of heat, so that 
the interior of the leaves is very juicy. The juice contains a good deal both of alkali and oil (the ingredients 
of which soap is composed,) so that in some places of the peninsula, it is used as a substitute for soap ; the 
pulp forming a lather with water. Cattle are also fed on the sliced or bruised leaves, at those seasons when 
the pastures are burnt up by the drought. So that it is a useful plant even in those parts of Europe where 
the vegetation of more temperate climes is apt to fail. In Mexico, it is far more useful; and is, indeed one 
of the most valuable products of the soil, answering some of the purposes which are answered by rye in the 
north of Europe, barley in the middle latitudes, and the vine toward the south. The wines and spirits of 
the country are prepared from it; and though their flavour is not much relished by Europeans, they are in 
high estimation with the natives. When the leaves have come to their full size, and the flower stalk is about 
to spring up, the heart of the plant is scooped out, and the outside left in the form of a cup. That cup soon 
fills with the juice, which is removed successively, till no more can be obtained, and the remaining leaves, 
as well as those that are cut out, are dried for fuel. The juice is set to ferment ; and when it has undergone 
that process, it is the Pulque, or Mexican beer. It soon gets acid, and even rancid, from the quantity of 
oil ; but the natives relish it. When recently made, it is said to be much more palatable, and probably it 
does not become unpleasant sooner than the weak and imperfectly fined malt liquors of this country do in 
the hot season. The juice of the Agave is also distilled into an ardent and intoxicating spirit, called Mercal, 
or Vino Mercal, in which the inconsiderate indulge to the same excess as they do in spirits from grain, 
potatoes, beetroot, and other vegetables, in Europe. The people of all countries are too fond of preparing 
such beverages ; thus the natives of India lay the palm trees under contribution for their arrack; and the 
hemp, for that still more intoxicating and pernicious liquid which they call Bang. The fibres of the Agave 
are tough and straight, and they are sometimes used as cords ; but the proper cordage of the tropical Ame- 
ricans is not made from them ; but from the fibres of some of the wild Bromelias, or from the coire, or 
fibres, which surround the shell of the cocoa nut. 
A specimen of the American aloe, exhibited in flower a short time ago at the Colosseum, in Regent’s 
Park, London, was about twenty-five feet high. This plate is from a drawing made of the Agave Americana, 
shown January last, on the grounds of the intended Garden of the Royal Botanical Society, in the inner 
circle of the Regent’s Park, which plant was said to be thirty feet high, save two inches. The panicle, or 
bunch of flowers, according to the habits of the tribe, fade off at the bottom as others come into flower at top. 
When first the gardener observed the leaves of this plant begin to droop, he thought it sickly, but on ex- 
amination discovered in the centre of the plant, a small head shewing for flower, which grew seven inches 
in twenty four hours. Having acquired its full growth, it finally produces its gigantic flower stem, after 
which it perishes. This stem sometimes is as much as forty feet high, and continues to flower for two or 
three months in succession. On this Agave, were twenty six bunches of flowers, of which one was acci- 
dentally broken off on removal from Kentish Town, and each bunch contained about a hundred flowers. 
The leaves when we saw it had undergone considerable mutilations from the visits of the curious, the fibres 
of the leaves being torn or cut away, to mark handkerchiefs, &c., the largest of the thorns for cribbage pegs, 
&c. many without doubt, believing in the popular opinion of its blossoming only at the end of one hundred 
years. The period at which the plant arrives at maturity varies, according to circumstances, from ten to 
fifty, or even seventy years. The leaves are about six feet long, and each leaf will continue to exist for many 
years, so that but a small number have withered away by the time the plant has acquired its full maturity. 
The dried flowering stems are an almost imperishable thatch, and finally the centre of the flowering stem 
split longitudinally is by no means a bad substitute for an European razor strop, owing to minute particles 
of silica forming one of its constituents. 
In the year 1818 , on the Isola Madre, in the Lago Maggiore, was a fine Agave Americana in bloom: 
the plant, which had maintained possession of a cliff in the rock, on the verge of the water, carried a flower 
stalk twenty-seven feet high, and measured twenty-two inches in circumference at the base ; its flowering 
canopy was one of the most imposing spectacles ever beheld. 
