f the streams in the
sultry regions shaded by other trees. It is said to be both a
preventive and cure.

Mr. Edward Otto, writing from Cuba to the "Gardener's Magazine" for
May, 1842, p. 286, describes the guaco as a tree growing from four to
eight feet in height, with beautiful dark green leaves, having a brown
tinge round the margin. The blossoms are small, of a bluish brown, and
hang like loose bunches of grapes at the points of the shoots, or even
on the stem itself, as it has seldom branches. The milky sap is said
to have poisonous effects. "I was told (he adds) that this plant is
used efficiently in cholera and yellow fever." This tree is said to be
the _Camaeladia ilicifolia_ of Swartz, common in Antigua and Hayti,
being known in Antigua by the popular name of the holly-leaved maiden
plum.

* * * * *

ALOES.--The drug called aloes is the bitter, resinous, inspissated
juice of the leaves of various species of an arborescent plant of the
lily family, with a developed stem and large succulent leaves, growing
principally in tropical and sub-tropical regions, and having a wide
extent of range, being produced in Borneo and the East, Africa,
Arabia, and the West Indies; many are also natives of the Cape of Good
Hope. The plant will thrive in almost any soil, and, when once
established, it is extremely difficult to eradicate.

The cultivation and manufacture are of the most simple kind. The usual
mode of propagating the plants is by suckers; and all the care
required is to keep them free from weeds.

From the high price which the best Barbados aloes fetches in the
market, L7 per cwt., its culture might be profitably extended to many
of the other islands. The aloes plant is indigenous to the soil of
Jamaica, and although handled by thousands of the peasantry and
others, there is not perhaps one in five thousand who understands its
properties or the value of the plant. With the Jamaicans it is
commonly used in fever cases, by slicing the leaves, permitting the
juice to escape partially, and then applying them to the head with
bandages;--this is the only generally known property which it
possesses there.

A series of trials made recently in Paris proved that cordage
manufactured from the fibre of this plant grown in Algiers, was far
preferable in comparative strength to that manufactured from hemp.
Cables, of equal size, showed that that made of the aloe raised a
weight of one-fifth m