vation, its vigorous growth on soils and in localities where no other plant will thrive, and the enormous returns which it yields for the outlay of small capital, a maguey plantation as a profitable source of income is unsurpassed by any other agricultural industry.[1] The history of the discovery of producing from its juice the intoxicating beverage known as pulque is lost in the obscurity of the past, but traditions are not wanting on the matter.[2]
The consumption of pulque has always bnee enormous, though during the war of independence its manufacture greatly decreased,[3] as also that of mescal, a spirituous liquor obtained by distilling the fermented juice, and produced chiefly in Jalisco.[4] Considerable quantities of both these liquors are manufactured illicitly. Although the maguey grows wild throughout a large area of the country, it is but little utilized except in the districts of which the cities of Mexico and Puebla are the centres, and where it is systematically cultivated.[5] In addition to pulque and mescal, a brandy called tequila is obtained from the bulb of the maguey.[6] With regard to the great value of the
- ↑ Payno estimated that these plantations yield a return of 80 per cent annually. Id., 418-16.
- ↑ Consult Id., 384-7, and 3d Ep., ii. 282; vol. iii. 608, this series, and Native Races, ii. 395, this series.
- ↑ The revenue derived from its sale amounted in 1808 to $680,604; in 1812 to $250,118, remaining at about the same figure during the next 10 years. For detailed statements, see Payno, Mem. Maguey, 94-5.
- ↑ And to a less extent in Guanajuato, Morelia, San Luis Potosí, and Nuevo Leon.
- ↑ The Mexican govt offers every encouragement for the production of the hennequen and ixtle fibres for the manufacture of cordage, sacking, and textile fabrics. Permission has been granted a company to utilize for ten years the magueys growing on public lands, and a premium of $30,000 will be paid for each mill put in operation. On maguey plantations it is arranged that one tenth of the plants reach maturity annually. The plant dies after it has yielded its juice, or, when unmolested, has finished flowering. It is propagated by suckers which spring from the parent root, which are not disturbed till they are two or three years of age, when they are dug up and dried in the sun, for if planted green the shoots decay and produce a destructive worm.
- ↑ Derived from the district of Tequila, in Jalisco. The process of making the liquor dates back to the days of the Aztecs. The bulbs are roasted in a furnace, and yield a sweetish liquor from which tequila is distilled. The value of this brandy produced in 1879 was $1,176,000; of mescal $570,646; and of pulque to $4,589,528. The maguey thus yielded, in liquors alone, $6,336,174. Busto, ut sup., ii. 427.
