Puebla has wide streets—for Mexico—and many beautiful plazas with flowers and fountains. It is also noted for its bull-fights and has two bull-rings. These are in use nearly every Sunday and frequently for the benefit of or in honour of some church feast or departed saint. The public buildings are very creditable and the city contains good schools and hospitals. A goodly number of foreigners live here, especially Germans. I have noticed that the Germans affiliate with the Mexicans much better than Americans generally do. One reason is that they come here to establish their permanent residence, while Americans, like the Chinese, desire to make their fortunes and then return to the land of their birth to spend their later days.
Puebla has become quite a manufacturing city and especially of cotton goods, paper, flour and soaps. Onyx and marble are quarried near here, and a large number of workmen are employed in the quarries and in the establishments preparing these materials for the market. Several railroads now reach this city, and its importance as an industrial centre is increasing each year.
All kinds of grains that are produced in the temperate zones will grow on the tablelands of Mexico wherever there is sufficient rain or water to be obtained by irrigation. A constantly increasing amount of acreage is being made available through the extension of the irrigation system, but its possibilities are only beginning to be realized. Corn, which is such a great article of food with the Mexicans, is by far the most valuable agricultural product and several hundred million bushels are produced each year. Wheat was first introduced in Mexico by a monk who planted a few grains that he had brought with him. This grain is now raised quite extensively in some districts but frequently there is not enough for even local consumption. Cotton is also produced in a number of the states.
THE MAGUEY
Mexico is especially rich in fibre-producing plants and no country in the world has so many different varieties. All of these belong to the great cactus, or agave, family. The value of the cactus has never been fully appreciated but new uses are being found for it constantly, and new kinds with valuable qualities are being discovered in Mexico almost yearly. Perhaps the most valuable plant of this family that is being cultivated in Mexico to-day is that species of the agave that produces the valuable henequen fibre of commerce. This plant very much resembles the maguey and grows on the thin, rocky, limestone soil of Yucatan. From this fibre is made most of the binder twine and much of the rope used in the United States. It has the threefold qualities of strength, pliability and colour. In the past twenty years the cultivation of henequen has grown to enormous proportions, and some of the planters have become millionaires almost rivalling the famous bonanza kings of olden times. The amount of henequen, or sisal, fibre exported to the United States from 1880 to 1905 was nine million, two hundred and nineteen thousand, two hundred and fifteen bales at an estimated value of $300,988,072.66. In 1902 the exports reached a maximum, and amounted to $34,185,275. All of this fibre is exported through the port of Progreso.
Several species of the cactus family are being experimented with, and it is claimed that they will produce an excellent quality of paper pulp. This may help to solve the problem that now bothers paper manufacturers as the forests of spruce disappear before the woodsman’s ax. The graceful maguey, the agave americana, is cultivated almost everywhere on the plateau lands. It also produces a valuable fibre, but this plant is not cultivated primarily for that purpose. The ancient races used the thorns for pins and needles; the leaves furnished a kind of parchment for their writings and thatch for their roofs; and the juice when fermented made a—to them—most delicious drink. On the plains of Apam just east of the Valley of Mexico and north of Puebla the cultivation of the maguey has reached the highest development.
The good housewife in the United States who carefully nourishes the century plant, hoping that at least her descendants will have the pleasure of seeing it blossom at the end of a hundred years, would be surprised to see the immense plantations consisting of thousands of this same plant growing here. The plant, commonly called the maguey, is a native of Mexico and grows to great size. It flourishes best in rocky and sandy soil and is quite imposing in appearance. Its dark green, spiked leaves which lift themselves up and spread out in graceful curves, sometimes reach a length of fifteen feet, and are a foot in breadth and several inches thick. It requires from six to ten years for the maguey to mature on its native heath. When that period arrives a slender stalk springs up from the centre of these great leaves, twenty to thirty feet high, upon which a great mass of small flowers is clustered. This supreme effort exhausts the plant and, its duty to nature having been performed, it withers and dies.
This is not the purpose for which the maguey is raised on the big plantations where the rows of graceful century plants stretch out as far as the eye can reach in unwavering regularity. On these plantations the maguey is not permitted to flower. The Indians know, by infallible signs, almost the very hour at which it is ready to send up the central stalk, and it is then marked by an overseer with a cross. The stalk is now full of the sap which is the object of its culture. Other Indians follow up the overseer and, making an incision at the base of the plant, extract the central portion, leaving only the rind which forms a natural basin. Into this the sap, which is called agua miel, or honey-water, and which is almost as clear as water and as sweet as honey, collects. So quickly does this fluid gather that it is found necessary to remove it two or three times per day. The method of gathering this sap is extremely primitive. The Indian is provided with a long gourd at the lower end of which is a horn. He places the small end, which is open, in the liquid and, applying his lips to an opening in the large end, sucks the sap up into the gourd. The sap is then emptied into a receptacle swung across his back which is made of a whole goat-skin or pig-skin with the hair on the inside. The maguey plant will yield six or more quarts of this “honey-water” in a day and the supply will continue from one to three months. It is then exhausted and withers and decays. However, a new shoot will spring up from the old roots without replanting.
This innocent looking and savoury sap is then taken to a building prepared for the purpose and there poured into vats made of cowhides stretched on a frame. In each vat a little sour liquor called “mother of pulque” has been poured. This causes quick fermentation and in a few hours the pulque of the Mexican is ready for the market. It is at its best after about twenty-four hours fermentation. It then has somewhat the appearance and taste of stale buttermilk and a rancid smell. After more fermentation it has the odour of putrid meat. The skins in which it is carried increase this disagreeable odour. The first taste of pulque to a stranger is repellant. However, it is said that, contrary to the general rule, familiarity breeds a liking. Great virtues are claimed for it in certain ailments and it is said to be wholesome. However this is not the reason why the peons drink pulque in such great quantities. Several special trainloads go in each day to the City of Mexico over one road, besides large amounts over other routes and it is a great revenue producer for the railroads. The daily expenditure for pulque in the City of Mexico alone is said to exceed twenty thousand dollars. Physicians say that the brain is softened, digestion ruined and nerves paralyzed by a too generous use of this liquor. Many employers of labour will not employ labourers from the pulque districts if they can possibly get them from other sources. Tequila and Mescal are two forms of ardent spirits distilled from a juice yielded by the leaves and root of the maguey. They are forms of brandy that it is best for the traveller to leave alone.