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 tract, almost entirely covered with numerous species and varieties of the plant, and some of the extensive arid plains in the interior of the colony are crowded with it.  The settlers go forth and pitch their waggous and campa on these spots to obtain the produce.  The shipments from Table Bay and the eastern port of Algoa Bay are very considerable.  The odor of the Cape aloes is stronger and more disagreeable than that of the Socotrine or Barbados, and the color is more like gamboge.  It is brought over in chests and skins, the latter being preferred.

Mr. George Dunsterville, surgeon of Algoa Bay, gives the following description of the manufacture of Cape aloes:—­

A shallow pit is dug, in which is spread a bullock’s hide or sheep’s skin.  The leaves of the aloe plants in the immediate vicinity of this pit are stripped off and piled up on the skin to variable heights.  These are left for a few days.  The juice exudes from the leaves, and is received by the skin beneath.  The Hottentot then collects in a basket or other convenient article the produce of many heaps, which is then put into an iron pot capable of holding eighteen or twenty gallons.  Fire is applied to effect evaporation,