s begun (each laborer having two); and
by the time the second is filled, all the juice is generally drained
out of the blades in the first tub. The blades are then lightly
taken out and thrown over the land by way of manure, and the juice
is poured out into a jar. The tub is then filled again with blades,
and so alternately, till the laborer has produced his jar full, or
about four gallons and a half of juice, which is often done in six
or seven hours, and he has then the remainder of the day to himself,
it being his employer's interest to get each day's operation as
quickly done as possible. It may be observed that although aloes are
often cut in nine, ten, or twelve months after being planted, they
are not in perfection till the second or third year, and that they
will be productive for a length of time, say ten or twelve years, or
even for a longer time, if good dung or manure of any kind is
stirred over the field once in three or four years, or oftener if
convenient.

The aloe juice will keep for several weeks without injury. It is
therefore not boiled till a sufficient quantity is procured to make
it an object for the boiling house. In the large way, three boilers,
or coppers are placed to one fire, though some have but two, and the
small planters only one boiler. The boilers are filled with the
juice, and as it ripens or becomes more inspissated by a constant
but regular fire, it is ladled from boiler to boiler, and fresh
juice is added to that farthest from the fire, till the juice in
that nearest the fire (by much the smallest of the three) becomes of
a proper consistency, to be skipped or ladled out into gourds or
other small vessels used for its final reception. The proper time to
skip or ladle it out of the last boiler is when it has arrived at
what is termed a resin height, or when it cuts freely or in thin
flakes from the edges of a small wooden slice that is dipped from
time to time into the boiler for that purpose. A little lime water
is used by some aloe boilers during the process, when the ebullition
is too great.

CAPE ALOES is the produce chiefly of _A. spicata_, and _A. Commelini_,
which are found growing wild in great abundance in the interior of the
Cape Colony. It has not the dark opaque appearance of the other
species. About fifty miles from Cape Town is a mountainous t