THE PI.ANT WORLD 135 



just maturing. Potatoes are common and they seem to grow best at 

 8,000 or 9,000 feet. In the plaza and gardens about town a good many- 

 peach trees seem to thrive, but the fruit is of little or no value, I was 

 informed ; also a few grape vines occur, but these evidently do better at 

 a somewhat lower level. Among the numerous native bushes on the 

 hillsides near by were two species of Rubus, but although they were 

 fruiting abundantly and looked quite tempting, the berries proved to be 

 rather dry and tasteless. Fine strawberries are cultivated and a few 

 scarcely ripened ones were coming into the market just as I left early in 

 October. 



Uses of Cacti. 



By C. R. Orcutt. 



These curious plants are prized in Eastern and European greenhouses 

 because of the great diversity of forms presented, and not a few because 

 of their brilliant flowers. Several species native to the Rocky Mountain 

 region are hardy in the Eastern States, and useful for rockeries and out- 

 of-doors landscape effects. 



In portions of the Southwest, particularly in Texas and parts of Mexico, 

 the prickly pear forms an important forage plant, and other varieties of 

 cacti are also eaten freely by cattle and other animals. The stock raiser 

 cuts the fleshy joints and roasts them slightly that the barbed spines may 

 not injure the cattle ; but the wild cattle are not at all fastidious or 

 tender-mouthed, and eat them greedily, spines and all. The beautiful 

 velvet cactus (^Cereics Emojyi) in Lower California is eagerly browsed 

 upon by goats and sheep, the young growth with flexuous spines being 

 especially sought after. 



The cord- wood cactus, or pitalla agria (^Cereus gtinimoszis), besides a 

 luscious fruit slightly resembling a strawberry in quality, yields a gummy 

 substance which has been used to caulk boats. 



The famed night-blooming cereus {.Cereus grandifloriis) is valued in 

 medicine, as are also many other species of cacti. Among them I may 

 mention the hikoi of Mexico, used in sacred rites by the Indians, and 

 producing when eaten some of the effects of opium ; a species of Mam- 

 millaria new to science, credited among the Indians as a cure for con- 

 sumption ; Opiintia tuna, now extensively used ; Anhalo?iiuvi lewinii for 

 the drug anhalonin, and others not yet well demonstrated. 



In Texas a curious notion prevails with some that eating the fruit of 

 the tuna is productive of chills and fever. The tunas exist in Mexico in 

 countless varieties and form one of the most important articles of food 



