108 
ALOE. 
proper time to skip or ladle it out of the tatch, is 
when it is arrived at what is termed a resin height, 
or when it acts freely, or in thin flakes, from the 
edges of a small wooden slice, that is dipped from 
time to time into the tatch for that purpose. A 
little lime-water is used by some aloe-boilers, during 
the process, when the ebullition is too great. 
“ As to the sun-dried aloes (which is most ap- 
propriated for medicinal purposes), very little is 
made in Barbadoes. The process is, however, very 
simple, though extremely tedious. The raw juice 
is either put into bladders, left quite open at top, 
and suspended in the sun ; or in broad shallow trays 
of wood, pewter, or tin, exposed also to the sun, 
every dry day, until all the fluid parts are exhaled, 
and a perfect resin formed, which is then packed up 
for use, or for exportation.” 
This kind of aloe is not confined to Barbadoes, 
but is cultivated in some of the other West India 
islands, where the same resin is prepared from it, 
though in a somewhat different manner. We learn 
from the same volume of the Medical Journal, that 
in Jamaica, after the plant has been pulled up by 
the roots, and carefully cleansed from the earth or 
other impurities, it is cut in pieces into small hand 
baskets or nets. These nets, or baskets, are put 
into large iron boilers with water, and boiled for 
ten minutes, when they are taken out and fresh 
parcels supplied till the liquor is strong and black. 
At this period the liquor is thrown through a 
strainer into a deep vat, narrow at bottom, to cool, 
