96 AMERICAN ALOE. 
small hand-baskets or nets. In these the pieces are 
boiled, for a little while, in water, by which the juice is 
extracted ; and successive basketfuls are boiled in the 
same liquor, until it becomes thick and of dark colour. 
The fluid part is subsequently evaporated, and what 
remains is put into gourd shells for sale. 
Other methods of inspissating or drying the juice 
are to pour it into bladders left open at the top, and 
suspended in the sun; or to place it in broad shallow 
trays of wood, pewter or tin, exposed to the sun 
every dry day, until the fluid parts are exhaled, and 
a perfect resin is formed, which is then packed up for 
sale. 
There is a kind called Caballineor horse aloes, which 
has a rank and unpleasant smell, but in taste is not 
much more disagreeable than either of the others. 
In its properties it agrees nearly with hepatic aloes, 
but it is chiefly employed by farriers in horse medi- 
cines. 
The medical properties of aloes have long been 
known and established : and their extensive application 
in medicine is, perhaps, the best proof that can be 
adduced of their utility. In the arts aloes are, in several 
respects, useful. But, particularly, the leaves of the 
Socotrine aloes afford a beautiful violet colour which 
does not require the aid of any mordant to fix it; the 
same also is capable of being formed into a fine trans- 
parent colour for painting in miniature. 
108. The GREAT, or AMERICAN ALOE (Agave 
Americana), is a large plant, the leaves of which are thick,, 
fleshy, and spinous at the edge, and the stem branched and of 
great height. 
The flowers of this plant are distinguished by having the 
tube of the corolla narrowed in the middle, the stamens longer 
than the corolla, and the style longer than the stamens. 
This magnificent native of North America is by no 
means an uncommon plant in our gardens, but, with 
us, it is seldom seen in flower. There is indeed a 
notion, but it is an erroneous one, that the American 
