ROOTS, TUBERS, AND MISCELLANEOUS FORAGES 251 



leave all other forage and feed on sagebrush for a day or two at a time. 

 After that they will not touch it for some days, or even weeks." 



Many species of saltbush, Atriplex, and greasewood, Sarcobatus, 

 flourish on the western plains and furnish forage to range stock. The 

 Australian saltbush, introduced into California and Arizona, has proven 

 of much less value than first expected. It is less drought resistant than 

 the native saltbush es and is rather unpalatable on account of its high 

 salt content. Its chief value, where it thrives, is to furnish green feed 

 late in summer when most other plants have become entirely dry. It 

 makes fair soilage but has little value for hay. 3 * 



392. Yucca and sotol. It has been recently found 35 that various species 

 of Yucca, including soapweed and the Spanish bayonet, and also sotol, 

 Dasylirion, spp., a near relative of the yuccas, furnish valuable emergency 

 feed for range cattle in the Southwest. After burning the dry leaves 

 off the stout, succulent yucca stems, the plants are chopped off, and the 

 stem and tuft of green leaves finely chopped or shredded by special 

 machines, and then fed to the cattle. The compact heads of sotol are 

 used similarly. Cattle may be maintained on either of these emergency 

 feeds alone thru long droughts when they would otherwise starve. 



393. Eussian thistle, Salsola kali, var. tragus. The introduced Rus- 

 sian thistle, now growing over great areas of the plains east of the Rock- 

 ies, is used to some extent for pasture and hay. The mature plants are 

 woody and loaded with alkali. It should be cut when in bloom and 

 quickly stacked. It may also be ensiled. 



394. Cacti. In western Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, various 

 cacti, principally prickly pear, Opuntia, spp., growing wild on the ranges, 

 are used for feeding cattle, especially during periods of drought. The 

 chollas and other types of cane cacti are also eaten by stock. Cacti grow 

 but slowly unless the soil is good and there is reasonable rainfall during 

 some part of the year. Because of its peculiar structure this plant can 

 survive protracted drought, tho it makes little or no growth at such times. 

 Under favorable conditions the prickly pear may be harvested about 

 once in 5 years. Cacti may be fed where they grow by first singeing off 

 the spines with a gasoline torch, after which the cattle eat them with 

 apparent satisfaction. Under favorable conditions a man can singe the 

 spines from 6 to 12 tons of standing "pears" per day. Sometimes the 

 pears are gathered in wagons and put thru machines which chop them 

 so the spines are rendered more or less harmless. 



Prickly pears are less watery than roots, containing on the average 

 16.5 per ct. dry matter, of which 3.4 per ct. is ash, and are lower in pro- 

 tein but somewhat higher in nitrogen-free extract. The young joints 

 are more watery than those which are 2 years old or over, and cattle 

 are said to prefer those which are more mature. Cane cacti contain a 

 higher percentage of dry matter than the prickly pears. Cacti alone do 



"McKee, U. S. Dept. Agr. Bui. 617. 



N. Mex. Bui. 114; Tex. Bui. 240; U. S. Dept. Agr. Buls. 728, 745. 



