17 



grazing- lands in the southern part of Texas, to the detriment of all 

 stock and land owners. As to the cost of destroying prickly pear by 

 means of fire, take, as an example, 1 square mile of land which will 

 carry G4 head of stock cattle the year round without winter feeding. 

 It requires three years to mature a steer, so that the grass product of 

 the square mile for one year will be equivalent to the amount of forage 

 necessary to fully mature 21 head. It has been estimated that a cow 

 or growing steer of 1,000 pounds live weight requires per day in pas- 

 ture about 110 pounds of green grass, containing from 24 to 27 pounds of 

 digestible food. At 110 pounds per day this would amount to 20.07 tons 

 of green grass per head of stock per year. Hence a pasture that carries 

 1 head to 10 acres must produce at the rate of 2 tons of green grass 

 per acre. Taking $20 as a fair average valuation for the cattle, the 

 market value of the grass turned into beef would be 21 times $20 or 

 $420, per square mile per annum, or about G6 cents per acre. Sixty-six 

 cents per acre would, according to the factors assumed, be the money 

 loss in grass if the pasture were burned after a lapse of one year. It is 

 doubtful whether any other method anywhere near as cheap could be 

 used to destroy the prickly pear. To be the most effective the pasture 

 should be burned in spring just after the new growth has commenced, 

 because the cactus is then most easily destroyed. The young and 

 tender shoots would be scorched and cooked and prevented from fur- 

 ther development, and the singeing oft" of the spines on the older shoots 

 would expose them to destruction by animals. The fire would also 

 check the development of the weeds and brush that thrive in the 

 shelter of the clumps of cactus. If hogs or goats could be herded on 

 the prickly pear after the fire, the destruction would be much more 

 complete. Goats especially are good scavengers to clean up weeds and 

 all kinds of noxious rubbish. 



The following statements serve to illustrate the change that has 

 taken place in southwestern Texas through the increased growth of 

 prickly pear. Bartlett * says : 



About the parallel of 29° 30' the table-land breaks off into numerous spurs, 

 descending to the great plains or prairies, which extend in a broad belt from 150 to 

 200 miles in width. The whole of this district consists of gently undulating plains, 

 without timber save along the margins of the streams, and is covered with the most 

 luxuriant grass. The indigenous prairie grass is tall, coarse, full of seed at the top, 

 and when young resembles wheat in the spring. But in grasses the glory of the 

 State is the mesquit, found only in western Texas. It yields a fine soft sward, pre- 

 serves its verdure in the winter, and beyond all comparison affords the best wild 

 pasture in the world. 



Now this same region is covered with brush and cactus. Again' 

 describing the country between the Ilio Grande and Corpus Christi, 

 Bartlett says that the chaparral only occupied the immediate Rio 

 Grande Valley, a strip to 8 miles wide, and that beyond this to the 

 northward there was a rolling prairie with a few scattered bodies of 

 (Cactus and low mesquite trees. 



Bartlett, Personal Narrative, 1854, Vol. II, p. 566. 



13475^5^0. 1(3 2 



