June 2, 1920.] Agricultural Gazette of N.S.W. 411 



Our ration is bo lb. to 401b. chaffed and steamed pear, and 31b. bran, per cow, and on 

 that they keep in good condition and average 6 lb. milk a day, a little over 2 quarts, 

 which we now retail at 6d. per quart. Unfortunately, we cannot sell all we have. The 

 other milkmen are mostly feeding as we are. At one dairy we are boiling the pear and 

 slashing it up with knives in the troughs, and they eat it all right that way. 

 Unfortunately there is no pear at the lo-mde, to that we can only cut oaks and vines 

 along tlie creeks, on which the stock do not do well. They held out well till this month, 

 but the last three weeks we have lost a good many breeding cows-. We liave now cut 

 'all the pear this side of the river, and are getting it from North Rockharapton at 4s. 

 per ton delivered on trucks. [This was mostly pest pear I — J.H.M.] 



Mr. G. L. Archer, tlicm Pastoral Inspector of the Commercial Banking 

 Company of Sydney, informed me, on 6th December, 1906^ that Mr. Walter 

 Horwood, of Daandine, Macalister, Queensland, fed prickly pear throughout 

 the drought from April to December, 1902, to 1,400 cattle. For four months 

 they had prickly pear entirely, and thenceforward 1 lb. bran per day per 

 beast. He described it as spinescent inermis (pest pear), which gets more 

 spinescent in shelter of brigalow scrub. [Note this. — J.H.M.] , 



An article, " Prickly Pear and th^ Spineless Cactus for Stock Food," by 

 Joseph Burtt-Davy, Transvaal Agricultural Journal, October, 1909, page 19, 

 is worthy of reference, because Mr. Davy, a competent botanist and agri- 

 culturist, has had great experience both in California and South Africa, and 

 he compares American and South African conditions and experience with 

 pear. He quotes U.S. Bulletin 74 freely. 



Prickly Pear as Fodder in India. 



The utilisation of pear as fodder in India is discussed at length at page 21 

 of the report of the Queensland Travelling Commission, but the labour and 

 other conditions of India very widely differ from those on our pear areas. 

 The very latest ofMcial pronouncement on the subject is worthy of reference. 



There is an article entitled "Cactus as a Fodder Substitute" which will be 

 found in the Tropical Agriculturist for February of the present year, page 91, 

 taken from the Agricultural Journal,' vol. xiv, part v. 



The locality referred to is the Ahmednagar district in the Bombay 



Presidency in India, and the reference is made by the Hon. Mr. L.J. Mountford, 



Commissioner of the Central Division. He relates that ha has been touring 



through certain areas and inspecting cattle camps and villages where cattle 



are fed on cactus, that being the name that prickly pear goes under in India. 



He is of opinion that the villagers have a very valuable fodder adjunct for 



their kadbi (sorghum stalks) in cactus properly prepared. The local method 



consists in roasting the cactus over a village forge and chopping it fine. 



Sometimes, as a substitute for kadbi, they add 2 lb. of cotton seed and 



occasionally 1 Jb. of chuni (gram and lentil husks) to the 24 lb. full seed. He 



states that in the camps and kitchens he visited he found cattle eating the 



stuff greedily. Some cattle and buffalo will eat the prepared leaves whole, 



but chopped fodder is best. The people are quite enthusiastic, and from 



reports received some villages have taken to this fodder almost in a body. 



Cactus operations are not new to Ahmednagar, as they were carried out in 1912 ; but 

 the village busy-body was not absent. Various rumours were started which at first 

 somewhat impeded tjie campaign, such as that compulsory payment would be insisted 



