THE CACTUS 141 



The different varieties of new spineless 

 Opuntias vary greatly as to size, but all are plants 

 that on good land attain a growth of six or ten 

 feet in height and across during a few seasons, 

 and some of them grow much larger; a four- 

 year-old plant often weighing half a ton or more. 



There is a good deal of difference also as to 

 size and weight of the individual pads or slabs. 

 Many of these weigh eight or nine pounds, al- 

 though the average is from two to six pounds for 

 the improved varieties. Some of them weigh as 

 high as eighteen to twenty-two pounds, but these 

 are exceptional. But the varieties having largest 

 slabs do not necessarily produce the greatest 

 amount of food. One of the new varieties of the 

 gigantic Tuna type has produced a slab four and 

 one-half feet in length. This, of course, is some- 

 thing quite out of the ordinary; but slabs from 

 twelve to eighteen inches in length are by no 

 means unusual. 



The growth of the plants is so prolific that the 

 total weight of the new slabs grown in a single 

 season, under favorable conditions, has been esti- 

 mated at almost one hundred tons to the acre. 

 On the best agricultural grounds, as on my own 

 grounds at Santa Rosa, the plants have produced 

 quite five hundred tons per acre in their first four 

 years of growth. This is from some of the most 



