850 Journal of the Department of Agriculture. 



to remove the spines by singeing. Then the leaves are chopped up 

 or the cattle turned loose into the prickly pear paddocks. For singe- 

 ing, either a plumber's blast-lamp or a bush fire is employed, or else 

 the leaves are boiled or steamed for some hours; conversion into silage 

 is also said to soften the spines. 



There is no question that, apart from its disadvantages, the prickly 

 pear has often been of service in South Africa for ostriches, o.ren, and 

 pigs. The last named have been found to relish the plant, which, 

 when mixed with dry grain, afforded them a fairly fattening food. 



Some years ago the Cape Agricultural Journal described a 

 successful experiment in pig-feeding carried on during a lengthy 

 period on a New South Wales farm. Prickly pear leaves were boiled 

 for some hours with meat and fed to nearly 200 pigs for several months 

 without any of them developing the least internal trouble from the 

 spines or bristles. 



Althoug'h the aperient nature of the plant at times proves a draw- 

 back, it was the custom in South Africa, as long as thirty years ago, 

 to feed ostriches on prickly pear leaves denuded of their spines, and 

 so enable them to withstand severe droughts. The late Hon. A. 

 Douglass, whose life was so closely associated with the rearing of 

 ostriches, used to feed the chopped up leaves to his birds and milch 

 cows during drought and general scarcity, with marked success, and, 

 according to Mr. Burtt-Davy, Mr. H. Abrahamson, of Longhope. 

 Cape Province, lost none of his ostriches during a period of drought, 

 because he fed them on prickly pear leaves and fruit, but his neigh- 

 bours, who neglected to use the prickly pear, although they had it on 

 their farms, lost heavily. In India, it was found that caution had 

 to be exercised in feeding prickly pear to ostriches, because of the 

 danger of intestinal trouble. Mr. P. W. Thornton, experimenting 

 at the Robertson Station, Cape Province, found that ostriches did well 

 on prickly pear in all cases, but best when lucerne ha^v was added. 

 Draught cattle did fairly well when idle, but lost in condition when 

 worked. Neither milch cattle nor pigs did at all well on unmixed 

 prickly pear. In the Eastern Province Mr. J. Martin, of Persever- 

 ance, pulped the prickly pear so as to render the spines harmless, and 

 then fed it, together with rakings from forage lands and mealie meal, 

 to slaughter oxen which had become poor through drought. After 

 two and a half months of this feeding the oxen were found in first- 

 class condition. 



In the Canary Islands cattle have been kept alive by feeding on 

 prickly pear; in Cyprus, Spain, on the Barbary and Syrian coasts, 

 and in fact in nearly all the Mediterranean countries, it is used as 

 fodder for animals, the smooth-leaved varieties being prefeiTed. 



On several occasions during* periods of famine, prickly pear has 

 been used in different parts of India as an emergency food-stuff 

 for cattle ; for instance, cattle in the extensive Bellary district, in the 

 Madras Presidency, were kept alive in the great famine of 1876-1877 

 by a mixture of one part of rice straw and 40 parts of pear leaves, 

 which had been cut up after removal of the spines. Similar experi- 

 ences were repeated at intervals until as late as 1912, when the plant 

 was used as an emergency feed in the Poena district. As an example, 

 it is recorded that on the latter occasion a herd of cattle was kept alive 

 for eight months on a daily ration of 1000 lb. of prickly pear and 60 lb. 

 of cotton seed. One of the latest recorded stock-feeding experiments 



