PRICKLY ASH 



4816 



PRIMARY ELECTION 



War, and in 1847 was made military governor 

 of the Mexican state of Chihuahua. From 1853 

 to 1857 he was governor of Missouri, and at 

 the beginning of the War of Secession joined 

 the Confederacy, becoming major-general of 

 the Missouri volunteers. At first he made a 

 great effort to win Missouri from the Federals 

 but was finally compelled to abandon the idea, 

 and his forces retreated into Arkansas. He 

 served under Beaurepard and Van Dorn around 

 Corinth, but in 1S63 was transferred west of 

 the Mississippi River. After the war he en- 

 deavored to found a Southern colony at Cor- 

 doba in Mexico, but the plan failed, and in 

 1866 he returned to Missouri. 



PRICKLY, prick 'li, ASH, a genus of Ameri- 

 can trees or shrubs belonging to the rue family, 

 the bark of which has medicinal value. In the 

 Southern states is found a species whose bark 

 is called "sting tongue" by the negroes. They 

 chew it for the relief of toothache, and the tree . 

 is locally known in the South as toothache tree. 

 It is usually not over twenty-five feet high, and 

 bears small, green-colored flowers. A northern 

 specimen, occurring on the mountain sides from 

 Quebec west to Nebraska and Missouri, is a 

 shrub. The name prickly ash refers to the 

 sharp prickles on the twigs, and to the simi- 

 larity between the leaves of the prickly ash and 

 those of the true ash. See ASH. 



PRICKLY PEAR, or INDIAN FIG, a group 

 of useful cactus plants, several species of which 

 occur abundantly in the Southwestern United 

 States. The common prickly pear has a flat, 

 jointed stem which produces clusters of spines 

 instead of leaves. Red, white or yellow flowers 

 spring from these clusters of thorns; the fruit, 

 resembling a pear in appearance, is edible and 

 nutritious, but like the stem is often covered 

 with sharp spines. After the prickles are re- 

 moved, the fruit is used as a cattle food and is 

 thought to be about equal to sugar beets in 

 food value. The Arizona Experimental Sta- 

 tion has introduced the practice of removing 

 the spines by singeing them with a gasoline 

 burner, but the most notable experiments have 

 been made by Luther Burbank, who has pro- 

 duced a spineless variety (see CACTUS; BUR- 

 BANK, LUTHER). 



In Mexico, the plants are dried and used as 

 fuel, and their fruits, called "fish from the 

 fence" by the native Mexicans, are sold in the 

 markets as a common article of food. The 

 plant has been introduced into the Mediter- 

 ranean countries, where it is cultivated for its 

 fruit. Its roots penetrate rocky crevices and 



make barren soil suitable for vegetation of 

 other kinds. On Mount Vesuvius, the prickly 

 pear is planted in the lava seams as soon as the 

 flow has cooled, to prepare the barren ground 

 for cultivation. 



PRIEST, the title given ordained ministers 

 in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox Greek and 

 Episcopal churches. It is the duty of priests 

 to eare for the spiritual needs of their people 

 and to perform the rites and ceremonies and 

 expound the doctrines of their respective de- 

 nominations. In the Roman Catholic Church 

 there are many orders of priests, all of whom 

 are pledged to refrain from marrying. Some 

 take vows of poverty and self-sacrifice. Priests 

 have the lowest rank in the Roman Catholic 

 hierarchy. In the Episcopalian bodies the 

 priests form the second order of clergy, the 

 bishops ranking first. The institution of priest- 

 hood had an important place in various reli- 

 gions of antiquity, especially among the Egyp- 

 tians, Hindus and Hebrews. See HIGH PRIEST. 



PRIMARY, pri'mari, ELECTION, an elec- 

 tion in which the registered voters express their 

 preference for the candidates for office in their 

 respective parties. The primary election is a 

 nominating election; it chooses candidates who 

 in turn stand for election at forthcoming regu- 

 lar elections. Each candidate in a primary has 

 his name placed on his party's ticket by a pe- 

 tition, which must be signed by a certain per 

 cent of the legal voters of his party residing in 

 the district. If the candidate is running for a 

 county office, the petition must bear the names 

 of the required per cent of the voters of his 

 party in the county; if he is running for a 

 state office the specified percentage of voters 

 in the state is required. 



-At a primary election the voter must declare 

 what his party allegiance is before receiving his 

 ticket; he cannot vote in a primary except for 

 men on his party ticket. However, when the 

 regular election day arrives, he may vote with 

 absolute independence. If the voter then pre- 

 fers the nominee of some other party he is at 

 liberty to vote for him. 



At first primaries were restricted to local 

 elections, but now they are general throughout 

 the United States, and state officers, representa- 

 tives in Congress, United States senators and 

 Presidential electors in many states are nomi- 

 nated at primary elections. The primary is 

 conducted the same as any other election, and 

 is governed by the same laws except that the 

 voter is restricted to voting for candidates in 

 his party. The direct primary is an American 



