an Agave will yield from i to io litres daily. The 
wound is kept continually open, and the juice is ex¬ 
hausted by means of a calabash called cocote. 
When fermented the juice is called pulque, and it 
contains about as much alcohol as good cider. 
Boussingault found in a litre of it 74 c.c. =58.1 grams 
of absolute alcohol, and 308 c.c. of carbonic acid, 
besides 1.90 gram of nitrogenous substances; the 
sugar was completely fermented. He calculated that 
in Mexico a hectare planted with Agaves, containing 
about 4000 plants, would yield 25 to 56 hectolitres of 
absolute alcohol in the form of pulque , and this would 
place the plant in the first rank among those culti¬ 
vated for alcohol. So much carbohydrate on the same 
surface j>f not produced by corn, the Potato, 
or the Vine. as by the 
WSgtily.^This enormous produce is,^of^cSSrshTifl 
reality much diminished by the Tact that the plant 
only forms sugar in such quantity immediately before 
the flowering, and that this does not take place until 
its fifth to its eighteenth year, after which the plant 
perishes. But the propagation of the Agave by shoots 
from the root as well as by adventitious buds, is easy 
both in Mexico and Italy. The later the plant is in 
flowering the more imposing dimensions does it 
attain, so that even in Italy Agaves with leaves 
11 metre long are not unfrequent. 
The pulque is turbid, and possesses an after-odour, 
not agreeable to everybody, which appears to have its 
origin in butyric and valerianic acids; the beverage 
resembles kumiss (fermented milk). It is, therefore, 
scarcely to be expected that this liquor would be 
relished by the Italian population in the presence of 
their capital wines. Nevertheless the experiment 
might be worth making, whether in Italy, where the 
Agave grows so luxuriantly, it could be worked indus- 
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